Terry Boot and the Masochist's Boulder
by J.K. Around
Summary: A complete parody of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Remember the crippled kid who was sorted into Ravenclaw in Harry's first year? Neither did we...until now. Here's his story, guaranteed to make you wish you'd never clicked on this link!
1. Introduction

_Terry Boot has never had two legs. He's never had friends, good food, not even a mediocre education. All he's known is pain and a life with the Barduses, his senile grandparents, and their pot-bellied pig, Grudley. Terry's room is a dirty, dark, dank, gaping hole in the backyard, and he hasn't had a decent waking hour in eleven years of his pathetic life.  
But all of this is about to change when a letter arrives at his hole, addressed to one "Harry Potter", and delivered by an owl messenger. A letter with an invitation to a wonderful place that he didn't know existed...and that he's not invited to...yet. Once there he finds not only another cripple to share his pain, but racism, favoritism, egotism, and many other isms that would take up too much space in this summary. Oh yeah, and one flippin' large polar bear...with gas. If only Terry can survive this year, he will have made a place for himself in the wizarding world...or at least another hole of sorts...but who is he kidding? Who could ever learn to accept a cripple?_


	2. The Boy Who Limped

It was a dark, clear night when the senile old wizard from Hogwarts started his journey through the Canadian wilderness. The artic wind and snow blew fiercely into the old man's face as he made his way across the frozen tundra. The crunch of his boots in the snow was the only sound for miles, except for the occasional howl of a wolf in the distance.   
  
He was looking for something in particular, or rather, someone, and if you really care that much, he was looking for a family. The wizard trudged through the snow for quite some time before he happened upon the scene he had been dreading. It was total carnage, the type you only see on Wild Discovery, and that only once in awhile when their camera crews get lucky enough to find some action. Yes, the scene he had stumbled across was dreadful indeed. The Boots, Rowena and Egberth, had been eaten alive by a two-ton polar bear. But who could blame the bear for eating them, what with names like that.   
  
The old man looking through the bloody snow was the most powerful wizard of his time, Albus Dumbledore. "Rowena," Dumbledore murmured, picking up the battered and bloody camera that should still be in her hand. "What a waste," Dumbledore said, and whether he was talking about Rowena or the camera, no one knows. "Well, this is what those dirty hippies get for deserting the magical world."   
  
Dumbledore threw the camera down onto the ground, but not before pocketing the last roll of film. He knew he could find someone who would buy it for at least ten galleons. If that plan failed, he was sure it would fetch a pretty price on EBay. Muggle technology be damned, he was Dumbledore, and if he wanted to use it, he was going to. No one was going to stop him, except maybe liver disease.   
  
He pulled a flask from inside his robe and took a long draught. As it warmed his innards, a semi-lucid thought crossed his weary mind. 'Isn't there a baby?' he pondered, as the alcohol started taking affect. He turned around, and started searching through the bloody snow. What was that baby's name anyway?   
  
Dumbledore had a kind heart, and at that moment he was cursing it internally while calling out into the frigid wilderness, "Terry, my boy, Terry!" He wasn't exactly sure if that was the name of the child, but he figured that the baby wouldn't be able to tell anyway.   
  
Suddenly, from under his foot, he heard the baby cry out. Bending down to pick up the profusely bleeding Terry, he said, "Sorry, Terry, my boy, I didn't see you down there…what with your one leg and all," Dumbledore added the last part as the clear lack of appendage came into full sight. Inwardly, Dumbledore sighed. The last thing he needed on a night like this was some malformed baby.   
  
Terry Boot, if that even was his name, looked at Albus Dumbledore with interest. In his little crippled baby mind, he was wondering if this was the man who was going to save him from the coldness, pain, and the life of discomfort he was sure to have if his missing leg was never found.   
  
"Let's find your leg, so we can get to the business of putting it back on and making you normal again," Dumbledore said, cradling the shivering Terry while looking for a tiny leg in the snow.   
  
This is how Dumbledore and Terry made their way through more of the frozen Canadian tundra, looking for a particular polar bear. They hadn't gone far, when they heard a distinctive growling; the growling of an evil, sinister polar bear gnawing an infant's right leg, to be exact.   
  
Albus Dumbledore gently set Terry into the snow, and hobbled after the evil, sinister polar bear. "I'm gonna getcha," he mumbled, arms outstretched, as the polar bear ambled ever so slowly backwards. After five minutes, the polar bear stopped, stared at Dumbledore, his eyes shining with malice, and gulped down the infant Terry's right leg. 

"You," Dumbledore mumbled, staring at the two ton arctic mammal.  Realizing that the polar bear couldn't hear him with the frosty wind blowing back his words, he raised his voice and shouted, "You!"

"Rwar," the polar bear replied.  "So, we meet again, Dumbledore.  Sober, I see.  Congratulations."

"You!" Dumbledore said, stumbling forward.

"I see I have spoken too soon," the polar bear growled, licking his chops.  "So, this baby brings Dumbledore, the greatest wizard of our time, to the Canadian outback.  I hope you grabbed a postcard on your way over the border."

"In fact," Dumbledore glared at the polar bear.  "I bought three."

"Enough chit-chat," said the polar bear.  "What do you want from me?"

"I want this innocent baby's leg back, you thief!" Dumbledore shouted, waving his fist in vain at the furry animal.  "This baby is destined to fulfill a prophecy that isn't mentioned until book five."

"A prophecy that includes that bumbling idiot Tom Riddle, eh?  In school, he was always the easiest to pick on, always the loser," the polar bear grimaced.  "Even if he was quite dashing.  It was _me, Albus.  _I_ was destined for greatness.  But no.  You took it from me.  You and that wizarding council took it from me, and sentenced me to live forever as a polar bear.  Me.  Lord Pullapart, the greatest wizard of our time.  You were jealous, Dumbledore."_

"Jealous?  Of you?  Being a polar bear must be driving you mad, Pullapart," Dumbledore said, walking slowly backwards.

"Of course it's driving me mad.  I'm a polar bear!  I used to be a man, Dumbledore, a greater man than you could ever be.  I was in a zoo, Dumbledore.  Did you know that?  Oh yeah, it was desperate times.  I traded sexual favors for fish.  Ever seen a bear go down on a man before?  I escaped, obviously, and now I'm living in the lap of luxury.  Ever seen a man go down on a bear?  Oh yeah, me and my army of penguins have it made.  The only thing missing are opposable thumbs, Dumbledore.  Thumbs!" Lord Pullapart finished, glaring at Dumbledore.  "I want to be human again.  I need those thumbs to take over the world."

Dumbledore leaned over, a stream of vomit careening into a snow bank.  Whether it was from the drinking or the bestiality, no one knew.

"But the council needed to flex its muscles, eh, Dumbledore? Who better to suffer for it than their greatest enemy.  Well, I'm done with being the Wizarding world's patsy.  I swallowed your prophecy fulfiller.  Now, all he'll ever amount to is a cripple.  A dirty, one legged, boy who can't fulfill anything, let alone a prophecy.  Or save what you're hiding in Gringott's from me."  
  
"Damn you, polar bear!" Dumbledore shouted into the frosty night. Silently, the evil polar bear lifted his leg, and let out one of the longest urinary excretions in the history of Muggles and Wizards. Impressed, Albus waded through the snow to the place where the bear had peed, because he couldn't believe he had witnessed such a long piss. The bear had a smug look on his face as he watched Albus Dumbledore amble over to where he had marked his territory. Leaning down, Dumbledore inspected the urine in the snow. Written on the now soiled white blanket of Mother Nature's were the four words that would haunt Terry for the rest of his life.   
  
"I BE LORD PULLAPART!!!!!!!!!!!"   
  
"Whew," said Dumbledore. "Those sure are a lot of exclamation points. I give it a ten."   
  
Lord Pullapart had already eaten two of the most powerful nature photographer's in the world, and who knew who he would digest next?   
  
Realizing that Terry's only hope of having a happy childhood and fulfilling his precious prophecy was now being digested by a large polar bear who was ambling slowly away, he gave up the struggle for Terry's normalcy, besides, he had two backups.  One would give away a plot in a later book, and the other was Harry Potter. Dumbledore absentmindedly picked up the infant and threw him into his old, worn satchel. "No need to be careful with that baby now," he thought.   
  
Making his way back to civilization, he stopped at a small airport to warm himself with pure, unadulterated Muggle technology. Inside, he saw an unsuspecting airport operator. He was working alone.   
  
"You, Sir!" said Dumbledore, laying on the charm. "Would you like a baby?"   
  
"No," the man answered, confused and a bit scared at why he was getting door to door baby salesmen, especially in the Canadian wilderness.   
  
"All right, thank you anyway!" Dumbledore said cheerfully, as he sauntered into the bathroom located behind the man's desk. Pulling a plunger from within the dark, dank lavatory, the old wizard crept up behind the man, and bludgeoned him with said plunger.   
  
"You could have used magic," said a voice from the lobby area.   
  
"I should have known you'd be here, Professor McGonagall," Dumbledore said calmly, stashing the weapon back in the bathroom.   
  
"How should you have known? I got laid over here from Vancouver," the witch said, brushing some non-existent dust from her robe sleeves.  
  
"You could have used magic," said Albus, throwing it back in her face. Take that!   
  
"I guess we both should have used our magical capabilities," said McGonagall, grimacing at the booze stench emanating from Dumbledore. "But sometimes it's nice to get away from the laziness of the Wizarding world."   
  
"So true, and yet so false," said Dumbledore wisely.   
  
"What do you have there?" asked McGonagall. "A baby! Oh how cu—Oh Merlin's Beard! He's deformed!"   
  
"I know. Lord Pullapart struck again, or for the first time, or...yes, he struck for the first time again," Dumbledore rambled manically.  
  
McGonagall rolled her eyes, and then said, "My word! How disgusting. It's a good thing you left him in the snow to slow the bleeding, Albus. Though if it was really worth," she gestured at his mauled upper leg, "remains to be seen."   
  
"What? Oh yes, of course. That's why I left him in the snow," Albus quickly covered for his incompetence.   
  
Suddenly, Professor Snape apparated on the scene, a pool of grease slowly forming at his feet. "The Potter's have been murdered, but their baby survived Voldemort's attack.  Sirius has entrusted Hagrid with the child's care.  Maybe you want to do something about this," he uttered gravely, raising an eyebrow, and apparated away from the deformed baby in Dumbledore's hands.   
  
"We have to get going, right away!" said McGonagall, worrying about the un-deformed child left in Hagrid's care.  "With Hagrid, chances are this one could be ruined too at any moment."  
  
"Wait a minute," Dumbledore said. "What just happened? I heard a flash of light."   
  
"Didn't you just see Severus? He came to tell us about the Potters!" McGonagall screeched, shaking Dumbledore, who didn't seem to notice.    
  
"Who?! I can't hear you, you'll have to step closer. My eyesight's not what it used to be…what?!" he said, squinting his eyes in her direction and tapping his nose.   
  
Thinking quickly, McGonagall said the first thing that came into her aged, tired mind. "Booze! And lots of it. This way!" she said. "Back to Hogwarts, you headmaster, you." 

  
"Of course! But what about Terry?" Dumbledore asked, in a moment of perfect clarity.  
  
"Terry?" McGonagall asked right in the middle of transfiguring a chair into a bottle of Vodka.  
  
"Who? Booze?!" Dumbledore asked, and then he looked down at his arms. "Oh! I was talking about Terry. You should have said something."   
  
In the end, they decided that the baby Terry wasn't worth arguing over, and they left him on the unconscious man's desk, which had really been Dumbledore's plan all along. However, since the plan had involved Terry, Dumbledore had kind of forgotten about it. When the man awoke, it was to find the infant Terry with a letter pinned to his reeking diaper. It was Terry's first introduction into the Muggle world where he would be staying for the next eleven years.   
  
Meanwhile, in a little house at 5 Privet Drive in Little Whinging, Surrey, Nonny and Diddle Bardus were blissfully unaware that they even had a grandson, let alone that he had been the victim of a brutal attack led by the world's most powerful polar bear. They were enjoying the advantages of retirement to its fullest, and were glad that there weren't any complications in it, like children of their offspring, malformed or otherwise.   
  
That particular morning found Diddle Bardus putting together a ten thousand piece puzzle. Mr. Bardus loved starting things he could never finish. It wasn't that he eventually forgot about the puzzle, it was that he enjoyed the feeling it gave him when he burned each piece in the fireplace after weeks of silent labor.   
  
Nonny Bardus loved baking things. She would bake all day and all night if she could, but obviously she couldn't. Nonny wasn't nearly as stupid as her husband. She would make Diddle breakfast in the mornings, lunch in the afternoons, and dinner in the evenings. She loved making things for him, because he worked so hard on those puzzles of his.   
  
Nonny had just finished baking a delicious looking cherry pie when the doorbell rang. Wiping her hands on her apron, she and Diddle went to the door together to see who was calling. Not many people called on the eccentric couple, and they usually liked to keep it that way.   
  
"Yes?" asked Nonny, when she opened the door to find a teenage boy in uniform standing next to her daisies.   
  
"Is this the Bardus residence?" the boy asked, looking a little too gangly for Nonny's taste, and too pock marked for Diddle's.   
  
"Yes," she grimaced at him.   
  
"Right, well…singing telegram, Ma'am," he said, jerking his cap awkwardly in her direction. "Ahem," he said, to clear the remains of that last cigarette from his throat.   
  
"Dear Mr. and Mrs. Diddle Stop   
  
Your darling daughter is dead Stop   
  
Their only child is alone Stop   
  
You're his only relatives Stop   
  
See you in Canada Stop."   
  
"Goodness gracious!" exclaimed Nonny, fanning herself with her apron.   
  
"Here are your plane tickets," the gangly boy said, handing Mr. Bardus a white envelope.   
  
"Er…thank you, son," said Diddle, handing the boy some loose change that just happened to be in his pocket.   
  
When the Barduses were safely back inside their house, they both had very different reactions to the news.   
  
"Poor Rowena," said Nonny, wiping her eyes.   
  
"Deserved what she got, that witch," said Diddle.   
  
"Diddle!" Nonny gasped.  
  
"Well, she was," Diddle shrugged.  
  
"I wonder if their child will be like them," Nonny pondered, wandering back into the kitchen. "Magic, I mean, not a ridiculous, dirty hippy."   
  
"It doesn't matter as long as he has ten fingers and ten toes," said Diddle, chuckling as he opened the paper.   
  
"I suppose you're right, dear," Nonny told him. "We can always beat the hippy out of him."   
  
That very night the Barduses packed their luggage into one of their old suitcases that hadn't seen the light of day for many a decade. You could tell they were really old, because they were in black and white, and black and white things always look old.

  
"Diddle, I don't think I want another child in this house," said Nonny, packing things down tightly into the suitcase.   
  
"I think it will be great to have a kid in the house! Hopefully a strapping young man, to help out around here with things. Someone to take on the family business…puzzles!" Diddle exclaimed, a gleam in his old, watery eye.  
  
"Maybe you're right, Diddle. As long as he isn't deformed, I can love him," Nonny sighed.  
  
"You're right, of course, dear," said Diddle, as he climbed into bed for the night while Nonny finished up the packing. "As long as he isn't a cripple, I'll love him just like my own son."   
  
Little did they know that in the Canadian frontier laid their grandson Terry, waving his arms, and kicking his leg in the air like a happy newborn, who didn't know that no matter what he did, he would be crippled for life, and that no one would care.   
  
It was a dark, cold night in northern Canada when the small plane landed at an obscure Muggle airport. The silent couple made their way from the plane to the office of the airport, where the special delivery was waiting for them. The special delivery named Terry.   
  
"Are you the grandparents?" asked the man behind the desk. He looked weary after being saddled with a deformed baby.   
  
"Yes," said Diddle, lowering his hood and stamping his feet. His wizened face looked like a dried apple, and he must have been at least eighty years old. Actually, he was a hundred and ten.   
  
"Where is he?" asked Nonny, who unwrapped the scarf from her wrinkled neck.   
  
"Right here," said the man, opening up his desk drawer. Inside was a small bundle of Terry, all wrapped up in furs.   
  
"Doesn't being in a drawer hurt him?" asked Diddle.   
  
"Nah. I figure, if he lived through a polar bear attack, he can live through anything," said the man, lighting a cigar and taking a puff.   
  
"He's adorable," said Nonny, picking him up. She quickly recoiled as the blankets fell from his body. "He's deformed!"   
  
"Yeah, that will happen when a polar bear gnaws off your leg," said the man, taking another puff and blowing it in Terry's face.   
  
"Can we change our minds about taking him?" asked Diddle, looking worried.   
  
"Sorry, no refunds. Besides, I have so many extra babies that have been mauled by polar bears, I don't know what to do with them," the man said, pointing to a door that said "deformed baby storage".   
  
"I'm so sorry," said Nonny, sympathizing, and trying to hand Terry to Diddle who wasn't having it.   
  
"It's all right. Sometimes they cry, but if you knock hard on the door with this stick, they quiet right down," the man explained, demonstrating for the Barduses.   
  
"Well, we'll just be leaving then," Diddle said. "Thank you for taking care of our trash…I mean, Terry."   
  
"Not a problem," said the man, leaning back in his chair for a good, alcohol induced sleep.   
  
The two silent figures made their way back to the plane, the frigid arctic air blowing right through their thick jackets. Suddenly, there was a cry from behind them.   
  
"Hey! You forgot your deformed baby!"   
  
"RUN!" screamed Nonny, as she and her husband jumped onto the plane as it began to cruise down the runway. But before the door could close all the way, the man caught up with the slowly progressing airplane, and threw Terry in through the half open door, watching to make sure they took off with the baby still on it.   
  
The little baby rolled to a stop at Diddle's boot clad foot. "What are we going to do with him, Nonny?" he asked her, puzzled.   
  
"I don't know, Diddle. I mean, he's healthy and adorable, but he only has one leg. Who wants a kid with one leg?"   
  
"His parents would have been ashamed, if they hadn't been brutally mauled to death by that polar bear," Diddle commented.  
  
"That's the truth, Diddle, that's the truth," Nonny nodded.   
  
Suddenly, Terry started crying. "What did that man say to do if he started crying?" Diddle asked Nonny.   
  
"Beat him with a stick?" Diddle asked.  
  
"Okay," Nonny agreed.  
  
So they did, and eventually Terry stopped his loud wails of woe.   
  
It would not be the last time Terry cried with despair, and it would not be the last time that he was beaten with a stick. With a name like Terry Boot, and with only one appendage, who wouldn't want to beat the kid?


	3. The Vanishing Ham

Approximately ten years later, the now even older grandparents sat in their cozy and completely Muggle friendly kitchen gossiping about the neighbors' new car. Not much had changed since the evening the Barduses had tried to leave Terry in the arctic cold. The only thing that had really changed was the smell in the house. Not long after Terry's fifth birthday, the family had adopted a pot-bellied pig named Grudley. Nonny, in some sort of "late life crisis", had insisted on getting a "real" child, and compared to Terry's stump like body, the pig more than fulfilled her wish. He not only had two working legs, but four.   
  
Now that was a child.   
  
But even though you couldn't smell Terry, he was still there. Well most of him was still there. He was sleeping in the second floor shower when Nonny turned on the cold water, awakening him from his sleep like a bat out of hell; a handicapped bat. Terry stumbled, on one leg, down into the kitchen, Grudley meeting him at the door, his foul stench clinging to him like some knock-off perfume.   
  
"This," Diddle said, sucking down a cup of cheap coffee and glaring at the pair, "is why we can't have nice things." Nonny nodded her head in agreement, twisting her unfashionable apron tightly in her bony hands.   
  
Any outsider would believe that the old and decrepit man, who resembled not much more than a pile of bones covered in a rather wrinkly and loosely fitted suit of skin, was speaking of the overly obese and quite smelly pig rolling in its own excrements before him, but he was speaking of the small boy in front of them, wobbling on his one leg. He was an adorable boy really, large blue eyes and a smattering of freckles across his nose. He had twenty-twenty vision, not to be confused with another boy his age. His clothes were hand-me downs from Grudley's sleeping sack, and Nonny's maternity dresses from the late fifties.   
  
"You should take a note from Grudley, Stumpy. He's dressed properly this morning," Diddle criticized, nodding at Grudley's soiled overalls, and glaring at Terry's baggy sweater and holey blue jeans.   
  
"You live in a shower, Terry," Nonny frowned at him. "You think you would have taken the hint by now and bathed regularly."   
  
"You gave me a shower this morning," Terry said quietly, smiling a bit at his grandparents and exposing the only thing perfect about his; his teeth.   
  
But there was really nothing to be done about his one leg. There was also nothing to be done about his obvious magical abilities, but the grandparents paid no mind to that rather large fault, as Terry quite frequently blew up objects around the house. They would usually blame his leg, or lack there of, for everything wrong that happened.   
  
Grudley snorted all over Terry's pants, as if to say "Your fashion sense or lack thereof disgusts me."   
  
"How disgusting," Nonny agreed with her late life child, pointing at their young, one legged grandson. The grandparents were constantly disgusted by their mutilated grandson, and usually kept him locked in the abandoned shower on the second floor.   
  
Terry's grandparents also had a hard time keeping something of Terry's under control. They had heard their next door neighbors talking about their adopted son's hair growing out control, but unfortunately, it wasn't anything that normal with Terry. You see, Terry's self confidence was growing out of control. Every time they tried to cut it down, it grew back in force, only giving them more of a hassle when they tried to cut it down again. This caused Terry, who should have been miserable in his environment, to be happy and carefree.   
  
"Roll your pants leg down boy," Diddle barked, as his stump was clearly visible. Terry grimaced, and rolled down his pants leg, sitting down at the table for breakfast.   
  
"Ahem," Nonny said snidely, "you are sitting in Grudley's place, you twisted excuse for a grandson."   
  
"What?" Terry asked, frowning slightly. "Does Grudley get my place at the table now?" Nonny and Diddle shook their fists at the boy in a scary display of unison gone a little too far.   
  
"Of course," Nonny said, her tone high and whiny. "We also decided to give him your shower stall to keep his sloppings in." Terry breathed a sigh of relief. He never liked that stall anyways.   
  
"You," Diddle said, poking at his grandson's stump, "can stay in that large hole in the backyard. And not that nice hole in the garden, either, but the one I dug to throw my burned puzzle pieces in. You'd better to be grateful to sleep in the ashes of my toil, boy."   
  
"It's Grudley's fifth birthday today," Nonny said excitedly, before Terry could question Diddle. "We're taking him to the county fair. He'll win that best in show prize this year for sure." Grudley chortled in response, and hopped onto his chair, burying his snout in the sloppings before him.   
  
"And you won't mess up his chances," Diddle said, scratching himself oddly and glaring at Terry. 

Terry squinted his eyes in confusion. "How could I possibly mess up his chances?" he asked.   
  
"What kind of question is that?" Nonny barked, motioning to his stumpy leg. "You and that damned phantom leg!"   
  
"You're staying home this year, boy," Diddle said. "We got Mrs. Figg from down the road to watch after you, so you'd better make sure we get our money's worth. Don't destroy anything of hers, and try to make friends with that Potter boy. It never hurts to be the patsy of a famous person."   
  
"Famous person?" Terry queried, but before anyone could answer him, the phone rang.   
  
"Hello?" Nonny answered in a falsely cheery voice. "What? No, you don't understand, you have to watch Terry today. Well, that's no excuse. Terry only has one leg, and he gets on just fine."   
  
Violent cussing and racial slurs filled the tiny kitchen of the Barduses as Nonny hung up the phone.   
  
"That hag down the street broke her haggish leg," Nonny barked. "The cripple has to come with us."   
  
"Yay!" Terry shrieked as Diddle hollered, "Nay!"   
  
"There's nothing we can do about it, Diddle," Nonny said glumly. "I told you we should have put up that electric fence, because we can't have Terry just running around the house while we're gone."   
  
With that, Stumpy, er, Terry, hopped out of the kitchen and waited by the car. On the way there, Diddle, barely legal to drive as he had the vision of a deranged Clydesdale equipped with blinders, whined confusedly about random events. He also had a form of Alzheimer's, and seemed to repeat things that he was trying to hide.   
  
"…those crazy polar bears, always good for a laugh…especially when they are deforming things," he said, for no reason in particular.  "That Lord Pullapart…crazy penguins."  
  
"I had a dream about a polar bear ripping my leg off last night," said Terry, but no one heard him. "It was writing its name in the snow with urine."   
  
"We're here," Nonny bellowed, as the car pulled into the "Ole Country Faire" parking lot, or rather, a grassy field filled with other cars. People of all kinds were milling around the entrance, if by all kinds you mean two legged people of various kinds.   
  
As they stepped out of the car the stench was overwhelming. It was like one thousand Grudley's inside an old sock filled with rotten eggs. Terry winced, trying to recoil from the smell, but with one leg, recoiling was quite the difficult task. He had tried once, and had landed in a hole- which Nonny promptly tried to fill with cement.   
  
After the Bardus's registered the large pig, they headed off to the show tent. The tent resembled that of the circus variety, with red and white stripes up and down its exterior. Inside the tent were stands arranged in a sort of coliseum style around the edges, and in the very center sat the judging stands.   
  
A pudgy, surly looking man, who was wearing a blue ribbon on his chest that read "Judge #1", stepped into the inner circle.   
  
"Ahem," he said, clearing his throat. "Would the handlers please bring their animals forth?" Terry watched from the stands, where he sat all alone, as Nonny dragged Grudley up onto the showing stand. Grudley, more rotund that usual, nearly crushed the stand to pieces. This made Nonny squeal with enjoyment. The fatter Grudley was, the better his chances at taking home the gold…plated trophy.   
  
The judge was walking around slowly, stepping in pig excrement and holding his nose, examining the other pigs, and Terry suddenly realized there was something worse than being a cripple. That would involve being a pig judge at the local fair. Or even worse, Terry mused, being a cripple at a local fair.   
  
That's when he realized that there was nothing worse than being him. He supposed, with a laugh, that he had known that simple fact all along.   
  
At that juncture it occurred to him that he really didn't have much to live for. Just as the judge stepped in front of Grudley, Terry closed his eyes and thought, "If only I had one of his legs." And then, suddenly and unexpectedly, Grudley vanished all together! The judge gasped, took off his glasses, put them back on again, and stared down where Grudley should have been. But, instead of the large piece of stinking animal, there was only a plate of steaming sausages. Which were also large and stinking, but we digress. Let's just say, Grudley didn't win best in show.   
  
Diddle ran over to the plated pig as Nonny fainted onto the ground. He glared at Terry over the steaming meat, and was about to give him a good yelling when he forgot that Terry existed again.   
  
"How could this have happened?" Diddle asked madly, as another pig, this one not comprised of sausage links, received the blue ribbon.   
  
Terry raised his hand, ready to admit to his crimes.   
  
"I somehow turned Grudley into a plate of sausages with my mind," he said, stumbling over to the scene.   
  
"I mean who or what could have done this?" Diddle continued, throwing his hands up in the air like a maniac, nearly trampling Terry.   
  
Nonny, who had just come to, got up from the ground, with a strange gleam in her eye and a smirk on her old, decrepit face. She walked right up to Terry and looked him over, attempting to deduce how Grudley's state could be his fault.   
  
"I'd blame Terry, but there isn't anything unique or special about him besides that blasted stump for a leg, which isn't special except for in the sense that mentally impaired kids are special," she screeched, digging through her purse for a baggy. "We need to bag up Grudley and get him home immediately!"   
  
"Wait a minute!" Diddle yelled, "did you say stump and Terry?"   
  
"Yes I did Diddle, yes I did," Nonny said, about to scoop a handful of Grudley into her Ziploc bag.  
  
"That's it! His deformed leg must have done it somehow," Diddle proclaimed, a wizened look on his haggard face. Nonny's eyes opened in realization.   
  
"My word, you must be right, I mean look at it! It's the perfect scapegoat. Why didn't Hitler think of this? Oh wait, he did," Nonny said in agreement.   
  
Terry thought he was going to explode. Never in his life had he felt such pure anger coursing through his veins. Terry was the type of kid that instead of getting angry got confused. He ought to have been very confused at this juncture, seeing how he had just performed some sort of sorcery, but ironies of all ironies, he had never been so sure about something in all of his life. He knew he had used magic to exact revenge on the pig. His leg or lack there of, had nothing to do with it.   
  
"Actually," Terry said, hopping between the two, "I did it with magic."   
  
Nonny and Diddle looked down at the boy strangely.   
  
"Who are you?" Diddle asked as his Alzheimer's crept back upon him much like a refuge from Mexico creeps over the American border; not very surprising, and not very subtle, and in the end, very painful.   
  
"I'm Terry! Your grandson," Terry exclaimed, his voice high and manic, "and I used my magic on Grudley."   
  
"We have a grandson?" Diddle scratched his head.  
  
Terry pulled up his pants leg and exposed his stub.   
  
"Ah, yes… Stumpy," Diddle recalled, and then picked up the boy and threw him over his bony shoulder. "It's to the hole in the ground with you, and not that nice one in the garden, either."   
  
And that's exactly what they did. They threw him into the hole, and as Diddle pointed out, as if for the first time, "Not that nice one in the garden!" He installed the electric dog fence, and strapped the collar around Terry's neck.   
  
Terry pulled at the collar at his throat, but it wouldn't budge. Even after Terry changed Grudley back into his slimy, smelly self they didn't release him.   
  
It was at times like these that Terry tried to remember what life was like with his parents. If Terry had had any sort of education at all, he would have known that as you go further back in time, it's harder to dig up memories of things that had happened to you. As a result of this lack of education, Terry just assumed that his memories were something else that Nonny and Diddle had taken from him, along with his clothing and well being.   
  
This isn't to say, however, that Terry had no education. Every once in awhile, when his grandparents weren't looking, he turned on the TV, and watched shows meant for pent-up housewives. It was in this manner that Terry learned how to read (love letters from hot to trot butlers), count (stolen money), write (forged checks), and haggle for the best prices at the market. Not to mention he learned a thing or about how to handle a cheating husband, and what the best thing to feed your children was. When Terry had kids and a cheating husband, he'd be prepared.   
  
The Barduses didn't ever talk about Terry's parents. Even though his mother had been their one and only child, it was like she had never existed. All the portraits, paintings, and pictures were taken down, as Rowena liked to travel from portrait to portrait trying to catch a glimpse of her son.   
  
He wasn't sure exactly what his parents had done for a living, only that they were "God damned liberal bastards", and that had something to do with their demise. One day when Nonny, Grudley, and Diddle were out digging that hole in the backyard, ("Damn good hole. Would win first prize in a hole contest if there were such a thing. Would win first prize in a hole contest if there were such a thing," Diddle had said, letting his mental condition take hold.), Terry had decided to explore the house a little bit. He sneaked up to the attic, and there he had found all of his mother's old belongings.   
  
In a large mahogany trunk in the corner of the room Terry found his mother's old school things. Terry looked through his mother's old robes, picked up her wand, and tried to read through some of her old books. At the bottom of the trunk, he found a dead owl in a cage.   
  
"What is this stuff?" Terry had wondered aloud. In a pocket of one of his mother's robes was a shiny, glass orb, filled with red flowing clouds. Attached to it was a note that read: "Feed and water owl." Upon having Terry touch it, it exploded into a million pieces.   
  
"I guess she forgot," Terry said sadly. "And that ball seemed to be in the know."   
  
When Nonny and Diddle found Terry sitting in front of his mother's old trunk, they had thrown him into their precious hole, but had taken him out again right away and into another, shoddier hole. No need to ruin a really nice hole with a cripple.   
  
"They must really hate me," he thought, laying in the fetal position.   
  
What Terry didn't know was that they didn't really hate him; they just had forgotten he existed again.


	4. The Letters From Pier1

After the incident with Grudley and the sausage, Terry was punished for a long time. Well, it was supposed to be a long time, but then Nonny and Diddle Bardus just kind of forgot that Terry was supposed to be punished. 

  
"Didn't we used to have a monkey around here?" Diddle asked one morning over a breakfast of eggs and bacon.   
  
"You're right!" Nonny exclaimed, sniffing the air and catching a whiff of burning bacon. "A certain odor is gone, but I can't place it."   
  
"You're right, my dear," Diddle said, beginning to sniff the air himself, and gagging on his own bodily stench. "But what was it?"   
  
"Good morning!" said Terry, as cheerfully as he could muster, while he limped his way slowly into the kitchen. Every morning Terry awoke refreshed and eager to start a new day, almost forgetting that he was deformed, that his grandparents hated him, and that he lived in a hole, and not that nice hole in the garden, either, as Diddle so often reminded him.   
  
"Oh yes," said Nonny disdainfully. "It was the reek of deformity."   
  
"What's for breakfast?" asked Terry, still trying to be cheerful, but not succeeding. He didn't like displeasing his grandparents, but that was all he ever did.  No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't seem to overcome his deformity.  
  
"You're having phantom food to go with your phantom leg, boy!" Diddle shouted, as Nonny flipped through some of that morning's mail. Bills, bills, junk mail, you could be a winner, bills, and a death threat.   
  
"Something for you, Terry," Nonny said. "It's from the neighbors. It appears you've been keeping the neighborhood up with your handicapped nightmares and uncontrollable sobbing. Knock it off, or it's doomsday for you, according to the people at number four."   
  
Terry looked abashed. He had tried to keep his crying quiet, but with worms crawling into his pants and bodily orifices, it was hard to concentrate on other things.   
  
"Oh no, Diddle," said Nonny suddenly. Grudley, who had been sitting at the table eating slops, stared at her with large, brown eyes, as his meal dribbled slowly down onto his new tuxedo, and slid into his top hat, which was next to his monocle and walking stick. Grudley was dressed to the nines with no where to go.   
  
"What is it, dear?" Diddle asked, slowly burning puzzle pieces over the stove. He liked to get an early start on his work day. Diddle was the one who brought home the bacon in the family, raw and still breathing, but he did drive it home. Actually, Nonny drove, but he bought it.   
  
"Pier-1…they're out to get me. I knew the internet wasn't a safe place to cheat people!" Nonny screeched, suddenly realizing that EBay might be setting a death trap full of untimely death for her at that very moment.   
  
"What'll we do, Nonny?" Diddle asked, brought out of his puzzle burning trance at the sound of worry in his dear wife's voice.   
  
"You could always pay your Pier-1 bill," Terry suggested. "Then they'd leave you alone."   
  
"Get out of here, boy, you're ruining my breakfast with your absent leg!" Diddle said, swatting at Terry with his newspaper. He really hated when that crippled grandson of his made even a little bit of sense, which wasn't often, but often enough to make him mad.   
  
So Terry slid off the kitchen chair and headed outside to his hole in the ground, clutching a piece of toast in one hand. Just as he had made himself comfortable in his little dug-out, something plopped onto his head, and slid to the ground. It was owl feces. But when Terry looked up to see where this owl had come from, he got a piece of paper right in the eye.   
  
"Ouch!" Terry exclaimed, holding a hand over his eye as he tried to grab for the letter with no depth perception. As soon as his eye stopped hurting, he clutched at the letter, excitement filling his every being. No one had ever sent him a letter before, except the Special Olympics.   
  
"Oh, it's a mistake," said Terry. The address said:   
  
"To Mr. Harry Potter   
  
The Cupboard under the Stairs   
  
4 Privet Drive   
  
Little Whinging   
  
Surrey"   
  
"Oh!" said Terry. "I forgot all about that little boy living next door.  I can take this over to him! Maybe I'll make a new friend! Diddle will be really pleased if I'm friends with a famous person. I wonder why he's famous?" Terry wondered to himself, as he dragged his body out of the hole, and slowly limped across the yard.   
  
Suddenly, Diddle knocked on the patio window with his cane. "You, boy!" he shouted through the glass. "Where are you going with that stump?"   
  
Terry walked back into the house with the letter. "I got a letter from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."   
  
"You?!" said Nonny, aghast. Hogwarts was letting anyone in these days. "Why would they give you a letter, except for the fact you have all that magical blood running through your veins? Your mother got one, I remember, but she had all her limbs."   
  
"Magical?" Terry asked. "I'm magical?!"   
  
"No! You're a disgrace to human kind," Diddle said. "Now what about this letter?"   
  
"It's not for me. It's for Harry Potter," Terry explained.   
  
"Harry Potter!" Diddle and Nonny gasped together.   
  
"Yes, he lives right next door!"  Terry said excitedly.  
  
"Of course he does. Give me the letter," said Diddle. "I'll deliver it. I don't want the neighbors seeing our disgrace, and by disgrace, I mean you, and by our, I mean all your own."   
  
"But I thought you wanted me to be Harry Potter's patsy?" Terry asked, confused.   
  
"I did? Must be my Alzheimer's kicking in, thinking you were normal. Of course I don't want you to visit Harry Potter. He'll just laugh at you, and then us, because we own you, I mean support you."   
  
"Who is this Harry Potter, and what makes him so special?" Terry pressed.   
  
"Don't get your hopes up," Nonny sneered. "He's not crippled. He just saved the entire Wizarding world from a terrible fate."   
  
"What?" Terry asked, mouth agape.   
  
"Terry, I have to deliver this letter, but I'm sure sometime I'll tell you about the Wizarding world to which you belong," Diddle said, and then forgot completely about what he had just promised. "Go to your hole, Terry, and stop being nosy. I have to deliver this letter to Harry Potter. It needs to go to Harry Potter."   
  
And so he delivered it. Diddle slipped it right through the mail slot, and no one was the wiser, except for Terry, and no one ever asked him how Harry Potter got his first letter from Hogwarts.   
  
Later that evening in the hole Terry laid awake, thinking about his life. It didn't take him that long to think about, considering that most of his life took place in a leaky shower where he contemplated his mysterious past.   
  
No one had ever told Terry about how his parents had really died, and it wasn't like they were trying to keep it some big secret, they just basically forget Terry even had a past to be told about. Which was easy to do with a one legged boy. There is just less body matter to remember. Any two legged boy would be memorable, but Terry had no such luck.   
  
Diddle had told him at the tender age of seven that his parents had basically just walked into traffic one day, which explained why they were dead, but not why Terry only had one leg. Sometimes his grandparents almost forgot that he had only one leg, and almost loved him- almost.   
  
All of a sudden, as Terry rubbed his stump in frustration, a load of letters fell onto his small, deformed, yet delightfully adorable- but deformed mind you, body. The impact of the letters crushed what little leg he had left, which was a scary thought. If he lost his other leg he didn't know what he would do. Actually, sometimes he wished he would lose the other limb.  That way he would get a wheelchair and look like a real handicap, not just some deformed wannabe with one leg.    
  
Terry burrowed his way out of the pile of letters. "One of these has to be for me!" thought Terry, getting terribly excited. They were all for Harry Potter. Terry was about to go sit in his hole and have a good cry when a crow flew over his hole and dropped another letter in. This time it was for Terry.   
  
"To Mr. Jerry Bot   
  
The Hole Where He Belongs (But Not The Nice One In The Garden)   
  
5 Privet Drive   
  
Little Whinging   
  
Surrey"   
  
"Yay! I got a letter!" Terry shouted into the night.   
  
"Shut up, boy!" Diddle screeched from his bedroom window. She threw an old shoe at poor Terry. It landed where his leg should have been, and he had phantom pains in his stump.   
  
Silently, Terry crept back into his hole to read the letter by moonlight. So, he was going to Hogwarts after all! His invitation to that magical, wonderful place had finally arrived. The letter read:   
  
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry   
  
Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore   
  
(Order of Merlin, First Class, Member of the AA, Supreme Mugwump, Academy Award Nominee for Best Computer Effects Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, First Lieutenant of 56th Infantry War of the Worlds, Author of "The 500 Best Pubs in Britain", and President of the Albus Dumbledore Fan Club)   
  
Dear Mr. Bot-   
  
We are surprised to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Find enclosed, or else, a list of all necessary books and equipment.   
  
Term begins on September 1st. We await your owl by no later than July 31st. Good luck trying to fit in.   
  
Yours Reluctantly,   
  
Minerva McGonagall   
  
Deputy Headmistress   
  
Deep down inside Terry always knew he was magic, despite the fact that he only had one leg. Also, the fact that his grandparents had been trying to convince Terry it was impossible for him to be magical had something to do with his disbelief.   
  
Later that morning, Terry asked Nonny and Diddle what they knew about Hogwarts, because he thought that maybe they'd actually tell him something this time. After all, it had to do to the world in which they truly belonged, and indeed, Terry did coerce a bit of information out of his reluctant grandparents. 

Terry wasn't exactly sure when his grandparents had lost their faith in the Wizarding world.  Maybe it had something to do with their daughter becoming a wizarding hippy, which is the worst kind of hippy, or maybe it just had to do with Albus Dumbledore becoming the greatest wizard of their time.  In the end, it didn't really matter what made them so bitter, as long as they told Terry something about the place in which he needed to survive in.  
  
"Well, your father was in Slytherin, and your mother was in Gryffindor. The Slytherins are all pureblooded, trust fund brats, and the Gryffindors are full of themselves, may our daughter rest in peace," Nonny explained.  "Hey, wait a minute.  You didn't get into Hogwarts, did you?"

"I got my letter last night in my hole, via crow mail," Terry garbled.

"That's unfortunate," Diddle said.  "I'm going to miss having the extra baggage around the house, emotional or otherwise."  
  
"Wait, did you just insinuate that my father was rich?" Terry asked, using a word had learned from one of his soaps the other day.  He wasn't sure if he could use it outside of a sexual context, but he tried anyway.  
  
"Oh yeah, as rich as those Canadians can get," said Diddle, idly flipping through a magazine, trying not to look suspicious.   
  
"So where's all his money?" Terry tried to look demanding.  
  
"That's a good question, Stumpy," said Nonny, fingering her Harry Winston.   
  
"Well, it doesn't matter, because I'm going to be in one of those two houses, I betcha anything!" Terry said excitedly.  "I'm going to make my fortune in the Wizarding world."  
  
One of Terry's favorite pastimes was filling himself with false luck and lost hope.   
  
"Now stop trying to make us forget that you only have one leg, I'm not in the mood for it this evening," Diddle said snidely, swatting the boy with his magazine. Terry sighed and promptly hopped out of the house into his hole.   
  
He stayed in his hole alone for a few days, as his grandparents had hooked up the electric fence again, and one false move would give him the shocking of his life. After a few days of eating dirt, he heard some yelling from across the way. He poked his matted head over the top of the gaping hole and watched in astonishment as the family next door made a scene on the lawn. They were forcing a small black haired boy into a vehicle and yelling like a bunch of overworked banshees.   
  
"That must be Harry Potter," Terry thought, clutching his Hogwarts letter in his hand like a homeless man clutching a five pound note walking into a liquor store. Terry decided that now would be the time to make friends with Harry Potter. He also thought he might be able to help him, seeing how his family was almost as bad as his own. "But I bet they don't make him sleep in a hole behind the wood shed and then try to fill in the hole when they think he's asleep."   
  
Indeed they hadn't. Harry had it far better than Terry, but who cares.  Harry had a scar. Poor Harry.   
  
So, Terry hopped out of the hole, grabbing the electric dog collar that was around his neck and hoping he didn't step out of line.   
  
"Hey you!" Terry called to the boy.

Harry was standing next to the car and muttering something that sounded like, "Why won't anyone help me, because I can't help myself.  Ever."   
  
"I can help you!" Terry shouted excitedly.   
  
"Who are you?" Harry asked, looking like an escaped convict.   
  
"I know who you are! You're the savior of the Wizarding world!" Terry said, beaming at his supposed new friend.   
  
Harry looked at him, smiled, then looked at his leg or lack there of, grimaced, and jumped into the awaiting car.   
  
"I guess he didn't want to talk to me," Terry thought.   
  
Later that evening, they let Terry back into the house so he could shampoo the carpets.   
  
"Nothing like kicking someone when they're down," Diddle said, smoking his pipe, and hitting Terry with his cane.   
  
"Especially the disabled," Nonny said in agreement. Terry, on his hands and knees, let out a sigh of discontentment and scrubbed harder.   
  
Suddenly, there was an urgent rapping on the door.   
  
"Answer the door, monkey, er, Terry," Diddle boomed.   
  
Terry hobbled over to the door, and opened it to reveal an angry looking man in a grey suit.   
  
"Oh God, it's a disgruntled postmen," Terry thought, recoiling and promptly falling out the door into a hole.   
  
"That's what you get for showing emotion," Nonny yelled, grabbing a bag of cement. "Time to fill that hole."   
  
But, before she could suffocate Terry with the thick cement, she bumped into the postman. He thrust a letter at her, and she winced. It was from Pier-1.   
  
"These are dangerous people, Ma'm, I reckon you shouldn't get messed up with them," the postman said, trying to be helpful.   
  
"Oh, go on strike why don't you?" Nonny said in a harsh tone. The postman tried to apologize, but she threw a shovel full of cement at him and that was that.   
  
"Who was that?" Diddle asked, as Terry hopped back into the house.   
  
"It was the postman with another bill from Pier-1!" Nonny said disdainfully. "I knew I shouldn't have ordered that three hundred pound mauve slip cover for Grudley's day bed… using Terry's credit card."   
  
Terry gasped.   
  
"Yeah, we already spent all of the money in his account," Diddle said, picking at his beard.   
  
"You… you!" Terry tried to say, but was hit with the cane again.   
  
"Shut it, Limpy McStub," Diddle yelled crazily. "It isn't our fault you have bad credit."   
  
"Yes, it is entirely your fault!" Terry replied, his stump quivering.   
  
"How dare you!" Nonny barked. "We took you into our home, gave you the food off our table, forced you into a hole in the ground, put a dog collar around your neck, and maxed out your credit card, and this is how you repay us?"   
  
Terry blinked. "Yes!"   
  
"That's it, boy," Diddle yelled. "I'm going to give you the thrashing of your life!" And he would have too, had he not forgotten about Terry's existence again when there was another knock at the door.   
  
"Please do get that Nonny, if only we had some sort of grandson to get the door for us," Diddle bemoaned.   
  
Nonny got up to answer the door, and gasped.   
  
The postman was at the door again. He had a very large package in his hand and a clump of cement in his hair. He backed slowly away from Nonny, and threw the package inside the house.   
  
"Damn shifty postal workers," she muttered, looking at the package. It was unmarked. "I wonder what this is."   
  
She opened it only to find to her horror a large puke green faux fur lamp shade from the Euro Store, where everything's a Euro. "It's hideous!" she screamed, blanching white. Attached to it was a small note.   
  
"Dear Mr. Boot,   
  
By the time we are through with suing you, this will be the only interior decorating you'll be working with!   
  
-Pier-1"   
  
Nonny screamed and fainted.   
  
"This has gone too far," Diddle said. "The only way to get out of this it to-"   
  
"Pay off the bills?" Terry asked, attempting to be remembered.   
  
"No, you ungrateful excuse for a grandson, that is the most cockamamie scheme I have ever heard. We shall drive off to some isolated hut on a large rock in the middle of an ocean so they won't be able to reach us. Gawd."   
  
Terry burst into tears.   
  
A few hours later they had reached the hut, and Terry was actually surprised that Diddle was being literal about the idea.  He had thought it was all an analogy.   
  
"This beauty has a costly timeshare," Diddle said, breaking the door off upon entering. It was dank inside and dilapidated. There wasn't much space, but a second floor allowed for a cavernous atmosphere, which wouldn't matter to Terry anyway. He didn't deserve things like space, or air, or other intangible things.   
  
Just as they settled into the hut there was another knock on the door. Grudley, who was eating dirt, squeaked and hid behind the couch, while Terry tried to climb out of a broken window.   
  
"Animals always know when something bad is going to happen," Terry thought, because Diddle had once told him that just to give him false happiness of actually knowing something.


	5. The Keeper of the Sleaze

CRASH. The door fell apart and Grudley squealed as Nonny clutched at the garlic chains she had just placed around her neck. She had been misguided to believe that all Pier-1 employees were vampires, and was ready with a whole bag of crucifixes in her bony little hand.   
  
"Back you foul creature of the underworld!" she yelled stupidly, waving her cross violently in front of her.   
  
Suddenly a giant man stepped through the doorway, eyes bulging and breath reeking of whiskey and other foul odors. His face was a mess of tangled hair and red course skin which looked wind burned. The long mole coat he wore suggested that he had spent not a few nights on the streets, and the pink umbrella served as a hint of better days.   
  
"He doesn't look like a vampire- er, Pier-1 employee," Nonny said, chucking a piece of garlic at the tall lump of a man, who immediately swallowed the smelly ball whole. When you're drunk, you get a terrible hunger. He belched and poured a can of cheap booze over the door, lighting it afire, and roasting a skewered pheasant over it.   
  
"I need more whiskey," he said, pointing at Diddle and stroking his beard. "It's not been an easy journey; riding in a cab really takes it out of ya." He pointed at Grudley with the pink umbrella, and with another loud belch, turned him into a can of potent moonshine.   
  
"Look what you've done to our child!" shouted Nonny.   
  
"Wha?" asked Hagrid stupidly, fixing to take a sip of that pig-er, moonshine.   
  
"Turn him back at once! Wouldn't you rather turn Terry into some booze?" asked Diddle, pleadingly.   
  
"Terry?" asked Hagrid, weaving a bit. Simple words confused him at times like these.   
  
"Are you here to steal our souls…I mean to collect our dues?" Nonny asked, fingering her Pier-1 wind breaker jacket. "Because if you are…"   
  
"Ah!" the man boomed, grasping Terry and shaking him good naturedly. "Here's Harry!" Terry looked up into the greasy man's abomination of a face and nearly fainted from the stench.   
  
"Well, really my name's Te-" he tried to say, without breathing too deeply.   
  
"Las' time I saw ya, ya had two legs," said the wavering giant. "Yeh look nothing like yer dad or yer dad or, I mean, yer dad. Yer mum. That'll do ya good. They had both of all their appendages, as I remember, or maybe that was my bottle. Yeah, my bottle had all of yer parent's appendages."   
  
Nonny, who was turning red in the face stalked over to the giant, holding out a bedazzled crucifix.   
  
"We could always exchange Harry here for our bills," she said hopefully. "Seeing how you have taken such a liking to him."   
  
"My name isn't Harry! It's Ter-" Terry tried again.  
  
"Anyway Harry," the giant continued, "let me be the first to wish yah a very happy birthday." 

"What's a birthday?" Terry asked, trying to work it out in his mind.  If he would have known any better, which obviously he didn't, he would have realized that it was his birthday that very day!  
  
Diddle stepped forward, biting his lump of a lip. "I don't like hearing Harry's name here and the word 'happy' in the same sentence," he barked, laying down the law. The giant rolled his bulging eyes and kicked the old man in the shins. Nonny pulled Diddle to her and muttered something about covering his jugular.   
  
"Just let the man do what he has to," she hissed at Diddle, while batting her eyelashes, and sashaying her hips in a "hey baby" fashion, right before her teeth fell out.   
  
Terry, who was now beyond confused, let out a high pitched screech. "My name is not Harry!" he yelled.   
  
"Keep it quiet over there, Barry," Nonny said, turning to face the giant. "We are busy negotiating with the undead. Now about that lampshade-"   
  
"Barry?" the giant questioned, rubbing his head. "I thought his name was Jerry. No, not Jerry. I meant, Larry. That's right, Dumbledore sent me to get Jerry…no wait…Harry?"   
  
"Harry, Barry, what's the difference, I mean just look at that stump," Diddle said, rubbing his bleeding shin, trying not to let the blood look appetizing.   
  
"My name is-" Terry quivered.  
  
"I said SHUT IT, Larry!" Nonny bellowed. "One more word out of you and-"   
  
"Larry?" the giant asked.   
  
"Oh yes, I meant Harry, now about sucking our blood-" Nonny pressed on.  
  
"My name isn't Harry!" Terry exclaimed, his throat getting sore from all the protesting.  
  
"That's it Garry, to the shower with you!" Nonny said, grasping the boy by the scruff of his neck.   
  
"Hey now," the giant said, "I came here to find a Mr. Harry Potter, not a Barry, a Larry, or a Garry. It's rather important I don't screw this up again. Mr. Larry Trotter over in London wasn't too happy when I paid him a visit, and neither was the ministry. And let's not even talk about Barry Motter."   
  
"Wait," Nonny said, realization dawning on her wrinkled face. "You aren't from Pier-1?"   
  
The giant smirked, and then scoffed for good measure. He usually had to add an extra scoff in there, as his smirking was nearly invisible to the naked eye under all of the matted hair. The last time he had forgotten to add the scoff in he had been expelled.   
  
"Of course not, I am here to save Harry from his abusive relatives, even though Dumbledore will send him back to them every summer. He's kind of got Alzheimer's, poor man, and clings to some sort of prophecy jazz."   
  
"Well," Terry began, "I may not be Harry Potter, but I do have abusive relatives."   
  
The giant looked confused.   
  
"Do ya have a scar?" he asked dumbly.  
  
"I have a stump," Terry said excitedly. For the first time in his life he wasn't ashamed to have a missing leg. It was his ticket out of here, and by here, he meant the hut on the rock.   
  
The large man mused this over for a second.   
  
"Sorry Garry, no scar, no story, no service." He walked towards the flaming door again and shoved the smoldering pheasant into one of his overly large pockets.   
  
"But wait!" Terry screamed, hobbling over to the giant. "What about the abuse?"   
  
The large man rolled his eyes, motioning to Terry's stump.   
  
"I would care… if I did," he said quickly. Just then, in a puff of smoke and blinding white light, a dark clad man apparated onto the scene. He was tall and slender, his skin a deathly pale tone, grease was oozing from his pores, and puddling on the floor, extinguishing the blaze around the doorframe.  This was no ordinary grease.  It was formed deep within the man's body to put out all sorts of fires and burning sensations, sexual or otherwise. He glared at the inhabitants of the room and let out a long growl.   
  
"THE VAMPIRE!" Nonny screamed, chucking a few strands of garlic at the man.   
  
Yet, despite the greasiness of the man's attire, it wasn't a vampire at all. It was Professor Severus Snape, smirking for all he was worth, which wasn't a lot, but you get my meaning (or do you?).   
  
"Hagrid, you drunken old fool!" the man hissed, halting the garlic balls in mid air with a flick of his wand. "You have failed yet again.  I for one, am not surprised, and good grief, is that a roasting pheasant in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"   
  
Hagrid slouched against the door frame and picked his teeth with the bone of a new born fawn. "I have here the directions to Harry Potter's whereabouts, now go immediately and I, sadly, shall take care of another one of Albus' foul messes." He seemed to motion to Terry's stump at the last part. "I suggest you leave immediately, before I'm forced to use real magic on you. In case you don't know what real magic is, it doesn't involve booze or prostitutes, so you will be quite ill equipped to fight back."   
  
Hagrid nodded and fled the scene.   
  
"Now Terry," Snape began, spitting the name out as if it burned his tongue. "Because of your mere existence I had to leave the warmth of my chambers and trek all around the greater half of England to find you. I think that is fair grounds for loathing you for the rest of your years at Hogwarts, if I remember to do so later." Terry nodded in agreement, bewildered that someone had finally gotten his name right. In fact, his name had been forgotten and mispronounced for so long, that even he was beginning to think his name was Jerry Toot.   
  
Nonny, realizing that Snape wasn't a vampire at all, crossed the room and stepped between him and Terry.   
  
"There will be no loathing of Terry," she snapped. "We don't want him to think he is anything special."   
  
Snape thought it over and then nodded curtly. "Perhaps you are right. Now I have been sent here to, er, collect Terry and take him to get his school supplies. I would go into how his parents were mauled to death by the evil Polar-Bear-Who-Could-Be-Named-But-Isn't, but then I'd either lose my lunch or interest. Either way, the bile would be rising in my throat."   
  
Terry's mouth gaped open and he began to sob. "You mean my parents were mauled to death by-"   
  
"Will you shut up for a moment, you idiot boy?" Snape snapped at him. "I have to send a letter off to Dumbledore posthaste."   
  
"Dumbledore?" Terry asked, confused that all of these people were suddenly involved in his life. It had always just been him, his grandparents, and that disgusting pig of theirs.   
  
"Terry!" Snape warned, as he quickly scrawled:   
  
Albus-   
  
I found the idiot, just before Terry and his family were asphyxiated by his stench.   
  
I'll wrap this up for you, and be back to Hogwarts shortly.   
  
The boy is still deformed, by the by. I hope you're conscious.   
  
-Severus Snape   
  
"There we go," Snape said, attaching the letter to an owl that just happened to be there all of a sudden.   
  
"Who is Dumbledore?" Terry pressed Snape for answers, as Diddle and Nonny tried to figure out if they should still stake Snape or not.   
  
"Um, excuse me, creature of the night?" Diddle offered. "Could you turn our child back into what he used to be?"   
  
"It's too magical. I can't fix it," Snape said bluntly.   
  
"You mean he'll always be like this?" Nonny said, a tear rolling down her cheek.   
  
"I'm afraid so," Snape said, sounding disinterested. "But really, you should be used to him by now, after eleven years and all."   
  
That's when Diddle and Nonny started laughing.   
  
"We didn't mean Stumpy!" Diddle chortled, motioning to Terry. "We meant our prize pig, Grudley."   
  
"Which is now a bottle of moonshine, thanks to that disgusting oaf," Nonny said with a sneer.   
  
Inwardly, Snape liked their style.   
  
The bottle gave a distressed oink.   
  
"Oh, that I can fix," Snape said, and with a swish of his wand, the bottle was turned back into the pig that they knew and loved.   
  
"Dumbledore?" Terry asked, unperturbed.   
  
"Where?" Snape asked, turning around and finding no one. "Oh, I thought I smelled the stench of alcoholism, but nowadays, who can tell if it's Hagrid or Dumbledore?"   
  
"Dumbledore?" Terry asked, hopping on his one good leg.   
  
"What's wrong with you, boy?" Snape asked sharply.   
  
"Dumbledore?" Terry asked, hope gleaming in his eyes.   
  
"Are you going to keep saying "Dumbledore" until I answer your question?" Snape asked, eyebrow arched.   
  
"Dumbledore?" Terry queried one last time.   
  
"You're lucky my life of torment has left me with little patience," Snape replied, resigned to tell a long and boring story meant to be filler. Terry's blue eyes glimmered with excitement, and he hopped down to sit in front of Snape, ready to be told a story.   
  
"Once upon a time the gods decided to punish me," Snape began with a sigh. "But let's not start at my birth. Let's talk about Albus Dumbledore. You see, he's the greatest wizard of our time, or at least he used to be. That was before Matilda, his first wife, ruined him, and his second wife, Lacretia, burned Matilda at the stake. Yes, and this is even long before he and Professor McGonagall began screwing around. Albus Dumbledore was the greatest wizard of our time, and to those who don't know him personally, he still is. It's only those in his closest circle," here Snape seemed to glow with some unearthly pride, "know what he's truly like, and I'm actually proud to say I know the real Dumbledore. Not only because it's really hilarious and I have little joy in my life, but because otherwise I would be one of those blind, deaf, ignorant people who follow him without question."   
  
"Like Hagrid?" Terry asked, actually following this rambling story of Snape's.   
  
"Yes, exactly like Hagrid," Snape said, feeling something of pride for Terry, which vanished almost immediately upon registering it.   
  
"What about the Polar-Bear-Who-Could-Be-Named-But-Isn't and my parents?" Terry asked, anxious. 

"How do you know you had parents, boy?" Diddle asked, suspiciously, hoping he didn't have to whip out the birds and the bees talk he had been fine tuning.  "Oh yeah, and who told you about Lord Pullapart?"

"Lord Pullapart?" Terry asked confusedly, having only heard that name in Diddle's tired mumblings.  "Is that my mum's name?"

"You're an idiot," Snape muttered, scowling.  "And how do you know about the bear?"

"Oh, the bear," Terry said, the confusion leaving his adorable face.  "I heard Diddle talking about it in his sleep, and he gets really excited when he talks about maulings."

Diddle grimaced, thinking about Terry watching him in his sleep.  There was just something not right about that boy, besides the deformity.  
  
"That's enough talk for now, Terry," Snape said. "You think you'd be satisfied just hearing about Dumbledore, but no. You cripples always want more handouts. Like, "Ooo, I'm missing a body part, could I please have another?".  No! You should all be glad for what you have, and stop demanding more of my time. That's all you cripples want, my precious time."   
  
"But you just said we want handouts," Terry tried pointing out.   
  
"Stop contradicting me!" Snape yelled, poking Terry with his wand. "I've had it with you."   
  
"Hold on a minute," Nonny said, waltzing back onto the scene. "I realize that your patience has run out with Terry, like any normal human being, but now what do you plan on doing with him?"   
  
"I have to take him back to Hogwarts," Snape said, frowning. "Apparently, it's where he belongs."   
  
"It's wheelchair accessible?" Diddle asked, astonished.   
  
"No, of course not!" Snape said. "This is the magical world! We don't have the time or money to buy into these new fads."   
  
"Then that is exactly where he belongs," Nonny nodded. "Someplace where he'll feel as awkward as possible."   
  
"Like that hole in the ground," Diddle agreed. "Not the nice one in the garden, either, mind you." 

Snape nodded. "I catch your meaning, as it were."   
  
"So I'm actually going to be getting an education?" Terry asked.   
  
"What do you think this is?" Snape snarled. "An academic facility? Of course you're not getting an education. We're teaching you magic here. Where did you ever get the idea you could use any of what we'll teach you in the real world?"   
  
Terry thought of this for a minute, and then realized that Snape had been talking for quite some time and about nothing in particular, really. A question was burning on Terry's mind, and he had to ask it, just one more time.   
  
"Dumbledore?" he queried again.   
  
"Look," Snape started. "If I tell you about your parents, will you stop saying that name?"   
  
Terry nodded enthusiastically, all the while thinking "Dumbledore?" in his head. Why was that name so familiar to him?   
  
"All right," Snape began. "You see, Terry, your parents were very-"   
  
Everyone in the room promptly fell asleep, leaving Terry alone to ponder what had just occurred. Snape awoke a few times to smack Terry with the blunt end of his wand when his thinking and breathing became too loud.   
  
On the other side of Surrey, Harry Potter was met with a cheery eyed and miraculously sober Hagrid who explained his life in full detail. No pummeling was involved.   
  
Yes, perhaps Terry deserved the gentle treatment, but then again- oh look the chapter's over.  


	6. The Gutter of Diagon Alley

Terry awoke the next morning to the sounds of muted 'oinkings' and curses.   
  
"It wasn't a dream," he said wanting to cry. "I dreamed a giant and an even greasier man came to torment me about my stump... and it wasn't a dream at all!" He exclaimed some more, but who wants to hear that? Exactly.   
  
Terry's quiet sobbing woke up Professor Snape, who, in turn, tried to kill Grudley, thinking it was some beast from the depths of hell. Snape usually tried to kill something every morning. It was a tradition born of habit. It started off with first years and ended with a pig.   
  
"Why do your grandparents own a pig?" he snapped at Terry, but then immediately regretted asking him anything. The pig, sensing that Snape was distracted, attempted to attack him.   
  
"It's their late-life child," Terry began to explain as Snape grappled with Grudley, but stopped when he was given a scathing look.   
  
"Can you move independently without your appendage?" he asked Terry with a grimace, as he stunned the pig with the blunt end of his wand, even though both ends were blunt.   
  
Snape was at his wits' end. He was a potions master, not a garbage collector. He was sick and tired of Albus Dumbledore ordering him around like he was some sort of minion of the Light Lord, even though he was more earth toned. At that point in time, he was completely fed up with the situation at hand, which, of course, was Terry. "If you can't move independently, I'll just toss you into the ocean, and call it a day."   
  
"I can! I can!" Terry said, quickly getting to his feet...er...foot. "Thank you for rescu-"   
  
"Keep quiet, or I'll toss you into the ocean anyway," Snape said, cutting off Terry.   
  
Suddenly there was a loud thumping at the window, and a large crow burst through the glass, squawking like a crazed fiend of a mammal.   
  
"Professor Snape there's a-" Terry began.  
  
"That's it, to the ocean with you," Snape muttered, attempting to grab Terry, but the crow barreled into him, knocking him flat on his robed arse.   
  
"Why is there a crow-" Terry tried again.  
  
"Start him on fire!" Snape yelled, and then realizing what he had just said, sat back in amusement as Terry tried to start the bird on fire. "Look at him go," Snape thought aloud as the boy hobbled around the room after the bird. Finally, Terry managed to throw the black winged creature into the fireplace, and it burst into flames.   
  
"Sir," Terry began, watching the bird pop and sizzle, "What was that bird carrying in its beak?" Snape quickly realized the crow had Terry's Hogwarts supply list, and absentmindedly threw the fiery bird and Terry out the window into the ocean.   
  
"That ought to put out _that_ fire," he mumbled, watching Terry swim for his life in the churning sea.   
  
Then Professor Snape suddenly realized that his Christmas bonus was riding on little Terry's sinking shoulders, so he heaved himself over the window, and rescued Terry from his soggy demise.   
  
"You rescued me aga-" Terry tried to thank Professor Snape.  
  
"Please, shut up," said Professor Snape, swimming for his life and sanity.   
  
When they finally got to shore, Professor Snape collapsed, heaving, onto the sand. Terry looked at him panting, and took the opportunity to speak.   
  
"Thanks for saving me twice!" he said enthusiastically. "I tried to help you swim. I was kicking my leg really hard!" Terry pantomimed swimming, and accidentally kicked sand into Professor Snape's gnarled face.   
  
"One leg never got anyone very far," said Professor Snape when he got his breath, rubbing sand out of his eyes. "We have to go into town. I should make you carry me, you lard sack." The sand was absorbing his grease, and there was a dark stain in the sand around Terry and the ill begotten potions master.   
  
Suddenly, a dozen seagulls swooped down from the sky. One began picking at Snape's robes.   
  
"I'm not even dead, you blasted aviator of the sea!" Snape snarled, shaking his fist at the bird.   
  
"You could have fooled me!" commented a lone bird out of the side of his beak. He had a dangerous gleam in his eye as he flew off with his flock.   
  
"That's it," Snape said. "When animals start trying to scavenge my living flesh, I know I've been in one spot for far too long."   
  
And so they left.   
  
The trip to downtown London was uneventful, unless you count the people staring and pointing at Terry's absent leg. Of course, when a one legged boy is hopping around without crutches, it does cause a stir.   
  
"Here we are!" said Professor Snape, opening a door. "Right then, in you go, and if you just look away from me, I'll-"   
  
But he never finished, because as soon as Terry looked away, Professor Snape apparated back to the Hogwarts grounds, leaving young, one legged Terry alone in a bar. It wasn't the first time it had happened.   
  
He remembered the first time it had occurred. Terry had been seven, and he was being used as bait to pick up spare change by Diddle.   
  
"Help the homeless!" he had cried to passersbys, shaking a tin can, and when that didn't work, he had screamed, "Twenty pounds for my son!"   
  
Eventually, tired of trying to sell or use Terry to make money, he left him in a nearby pub, hoping that nature would take its course.   
  
Terry gazed up at the building Snape had left him in, eyes raking over its shabby appearance. But Terry was used to shabby things so it didn't really matter.   
  
"Welcome to the Leaky Cauldron," cackled an old witch, thrusting a bottle of booze in Terry's direction. Terry took the bottle and tried knocking himself unconscious with it. Just then the door swung open violently, and a staggering silhouette of a man hobbled in through the glaring light. It was a tall blonde haired man with only one leg, and a set of shiny, golden crutches. Terry would have fallen in love instantly if he hadn't known any better. But for the first time in his life he actually knew better, so he instantly felt fatherly love for the one legged man instead.   
  
"You must be Terry!" the man exclaimed, shaking Terry's hand. "I can tell, because of your stump," he said with a wink.   
  
"Wow!" said Terry, eagerly shaking the man's hand. "You're the first person who's ever been nice to me."   
  
"I had a feeling. You have that beaten, downtrodden, one legged look about you. By the way, I am Professor Ray Kettleburn. I teach Care of Magical Creatures in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Dumbledore sent me to find you when he remembered what Snape was really like. Today we'll go to Diagon Alley to purchase your school supplies. Do you have your list?"   
  
Terry nodded and reached his boyish hand into his unfashionable corduroy pant's pocket. He pulled out a soggy, burnt, bitten, and defecated upon piece of paper.   
  
"Why Terry, what happened to your supply list?" asked Professor Kettleburn. Terry leaned against the bar.   
  
"Well, you see… Professor Snape-" Terry began.  
  
"Say no more, Terry, my lad. That man has been burning, wetting, biting, and defecating upon everything within a five mile radius of his presence since before I can remember. Which is this morning. I had a bagel for breakfast. He bit that too. Didn't wet it though, although I did see him with that bucket. I live in a bucket… but more about that later."   
  
Terry nodded knowingly, not really knowing.  "Where are we going first Professor?" he asked.  
  
Professor Kettleburn smiled upon the lad and proclaimed. "We shall hobble over to Gringotts, but anybody who's anyone knows what that is."   
  
And Terry, not wanting to be "no one", just nodded and made up his mind to follow Professor Kettleburn wherever he may lead him.   
  
And so they left.   
  
When they arrived at Gringotts, Professor Kettleburn kept a firm grasp on little Terry as they approached the line to the head goblin. Suddenly they were pushed rudely aside by a drunken giant in a molding mole coat, rats and mice fleeing for their petty insecure lives from the pockets of said coat. This giant, who Terry immediately recognized, was followed by a scared, scrawny looking boy that Terry also recognized as his next door neighbor.   
  
"Hey, Harry!" Terry said excitedly, as his body was crushed by Hagrid's thick, smelly leg.   
  
"I think I stepped on somethin'… I felt somethin' weird in ma knee area," Hagrid said, drawing an imaginary circle in front of Harry, who in turn checked Hagrid's knee just in case.   
  
"I don't see any two legged people down here," Harry said, smiling, rubbing his prominent scar as per usual.   
  
"Good, now let's get yer gold and the Sorcerer's Stone, I mean the Philosopher's Stone, I mean J. K. Rowling's pay check, I mean Lord Voldemort's ultimate goal… the Grocer's Bone. Yah, that'll do ya good." Harry only scratched his scar as they made their way out of the room.   
   
Terry, who had heard the whole secret that Hagrid was attempting to harbor, rolled to his good side and Professor Kettleburn pulled him to his…foot.   
  
"That was the man that soiled my sleeping rag," Terry said. "What did he mean by the Sorcerer's Stone and Lord Voldemort?"   
  
"Well Terry, sounds like two legged people business to me." Terry only nodded, but deep inside him something lingered. Whatever it was, it obviously wasn't that important, what with being inside of Terry and all.   
  
So they traveled down to the vaults where Terry kept all of his Canadian money. Terry had never been on such a trip before in his life. It was fast paced, scary, and quite an adventure. Terry wasn't sure if he liked it, or wanted to vomit after having experienced it.   
  
The goblin sneered at his passengers. He hated wizards who didn't know what they were getting into at Gringotts, and he especially hated crippled wizards who didn't know what they were getting into at Gringotts. He had never hated anyone as much as he hated Terry at that moment.   
  
He led the crippled duo into Terry's vault where Professor Kettleburn made an unsettling discovery.   
  
"What the hell is this?" asked Professor Kettleburn picking up a flimsy Canadian coin.   
  
"My parents were Canadian," Terry said, beaming.   
  
"That's nothing to be proud of Terry," Professor Kettleburn frowned at his young charge.  "I don't want to hear garbage like that coming out of your mouth ever again."   
  
"Yes, Sir," Terry said, abashed.   
  
"Besides, these coins really are useless," Professor Kettleburn explained. "I don't know what the exchange rate is. I don't think there is one. Tell you what, I'll just give you some of my money."   
  
They traveled to Professor Kettleburn's vault, and within the well sealed wall were mountains upon mountains of gold. It was enough gold to turn Harry Potter greedy.   
  
"Where did you get all this money?" asked Terry, in wonder and amazement.   
  
"You see," Professor Kettleburn began to explain. "There was a time long ago when I had both legs. Even I have forgotten the story of how I lost my leg or to whom, but the end of the story is that I sued whoever it was, and they had a lot of money."   
  
"My dream is to be just like you," Terry said in awe.   
  
"I'm sorry, Terry. That infamous, evil polar bear has no money. So scratch the suing bit. He only has fish, fish, fish, fish, and fish. Oh yes, he also has fish. Did I mention fish? He has a lot of fish. Fish and hatred. They go hand in hand, or, paw in paw. Terry, I could really go for some fish sticks, with a side order of hate. There's nothing like hot, bubbling hatred in the morning, but of course you already know that, Terry. Didn't that polar bear get your leg in the morning? And eat your parents? That was one angry polar bear, Terry. A lot of hate. And fish." 

The shock of losing his appendage was still with Professor Kettleburn, and to this day he will spontaneously carry on long, rambling mantras with himself.

"Who is this polar bear I keep hearing about?" Terry asked in confusion.

"Terry, the time for questions has passed," Professor Kettleburn said.  "Now, to answer your question.  The polar bear you keep hearing about is Lord Pullapart, and he ate your parents and your right leg."

"You mean my parents didn't wander into traffic?" Terry asked, tears leaking out of his blue eyes.

"They did a lot of that, too, so it was only a matter of time," Professor Kettleburn said.  "Damn lie-ins and their crazy protesting ways."   
  
Terry blinked in wonder. Professor Kettleburn seemed to know more about Terry than Terry did. Then again, a lot of people seemed to, or not to. Either way, Terry knew nothing.   
  
As they were about to leave, Terry noticed a brown paper bag in the corner. "What's in there, Professor Kettleburn?" he said, pointing to the bag.   
  
"I don't know. Booze maybe," said Professor Kettleburn. "Oh wait! That's my secret."   
  
"Secret? What secret?" asked Terry.   
  
"Terry, you idiot. If I told you, it wouldn't be my secret boulder, now would it? Oh damn," Professor Kettleburn mumbled.  
  
"Boulder?" Terry asked.  
  
For it was true. Professor Kettleburn was just as bad at keeping secrets as Hagrid was, only with less stench and surly dialect.   
  
"Terry, if I told you about the magical Masochist's Boulder and how Lord Pullapart is seeking it more than a trout in a barrel, then it would cease to be a secret, wouldn't it?"   
  
"But you just-" Terry tried to spit out.  
  
And so they walked back out into Diagon Alley.   
  
"It's due time we get you some robes," Professor Kettleburn said, kicking the paper sack around like a tin can. "It's like spin the bottle but without any kissing," he said, motioning to the sack as it rolled in the gutter. "Because God knows what would happen if any sexuality happened to weave its way into this book."   
  
"God?" Terry asked innocently.  
  
Professor Kettleburn frowned.  "That either."   
  
It was while Terry was at Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions that he got the first break of his young life. Well, the second, if you count that whole leg "breaking off" incident.   
  
Anyway, the big deal in this paragraph is that Terry made a friend. A friend his own age and that wasn't imagined or crippled, unless you count that permanent sneer. Well, maybe "friend" is too strong a word, but, well, you'll see.   
  
"Hi there!" Terry exclaimed as he entered the robe shop. The shop was empty except for a small boy his own age standing on a wooden stool, arms crossed and looking disgruntled, or constipated. He had obviously lunched at the Leaky Cauldron. They don't call it "leaky" for nothing.   
  
The mysterious, constipated, boy looked up as Terry addressed him, face contorting into a look of bemusement at the boy's state of attire.   
  
"I can tell by just looking at your Canadian backwater haircut that I am better than you, and will always, in fact, be better than you," the flaxen haired child responded. "Also, I am probably always going to be better looking than you, easily. I bet you five galleons that I will always be more two legged than you as well. My name is Draco Malfoy, and let me guess, you're one legged."   
  
"You could tell all that by looking at my hair?" Terry asked, hopping up onto his own dressing stool.   
  
"I've stopped caring," Draco replied, gazing at himself longingly in the mirror. Just then Madam Malkin popped into the room with yards of fabric draped over her shoulder.   
  
"Hello there, young Mr. Malfoy," she said with a smile, eyes slowly making their cross eyed way to Terry's one legged form. "I'll just measure…" she began, kneeling down by Terry's absent leg, mouth flailing open, long sweaty tongue rolling out not unlike a red carpet displayed before royalty, or a really well priced freak show. "Christ on a crutch, you have one leg!"   
  
"Shhhh," whispered a conformist religious group, cloaked in the light of God. "There will be no mention of Christ in this story…"   
  
"Or crutches for that matter," added in Terry proudly. Draco accidentally threw a rock at him.   
  
Just then the door swung open and the soft light shifted onto the raven haired boy walking into the shop. A choir of angels sang songs of joy, which immediately ceased as Hagrid threw a large portion of his ice-cream cone skyward, cursing.   
  
Harry smiled as he walked up to the stool Terry was standing on. It reminded Terry of the first time Nonny had taken him to the playground, so she could get some alone time, when a pig tailed little girl had been waving in his general vicinity. He had excitedly waved back, when he realized that she actually waving at a very attractive rock. At least Terry tried to think of it as attractive.   
  
"Hey Harry, remember me? I'm Ter-" Terry tried in vain to finish a sentence.  
  
"Hello," interrupted Draco snidely, "Hogwarts, too?" Harry hopped up onto the stool, unknowingly thrusting Terry to the floor.   
  
"Yes," said Harry. "Did you hear something? Something that sounded like a heavy object falling to the ground?"   
  
"No, not really," said Draco, turning back again to look at himself in the mirror.   
  
Terry brushed himself off, and collected the robes that Madam Malkin dropped in his general area. While he was struggling with the packages, and trying to regain his sense of balance, what with the one leg and all, Hagrid knocked on the window with his huge, greasy elbow, two giant ice-cream cones dripping in his hands.   
  
"That means he can't come in," Harry explained, waving at Hagrid.   
  
Then Professor Kettleburn showed up in the doorway, knocking on the frame with his thrice broken elbow, and pointing at his absent leg apologetically.   
  
"That means he can't come in," Terry explained, but no one was listening, unless you count-   
  
But no one does.   
  
Terry hobbled to the doorway, and Professor Kettleburn used magic to shrink the packages, for convenience sake, though everyone on Diagon Alley knew that Terry would lose them faster that way, even Terry.   
  
"Now it's on to Ollivander's," said Professor Kettleburn, watching Terry from the corner of his eye. "To get your wand."   
  
"I get a wand now?" Terry asked excitedly, as only a one-legged boy could.   
  
"Of course!" said Professor Kettleburn. "Every boy gets a wand, no matter how many legs they have."   
  
"Wow!" Terry breathed, barely containing his excitement. To be included at last! It was a dream come true.   
  
"I'll meet you back here," said Professor Kettleburn. "I have a little surprise for you, that may actually turn out to be a surprise, if I can keep a secret," he babbled inanely.   
  
Terry had already gone inside.   
  
The bell on the door jingled as Terry entered the dusty store.   
  
"Hello?" called a dry voice from the inner reaches of the fire hazard of a shop.   
  
"Hi! I'm here for my wand!" Terry called, with one too many exclamation points.   
  
"A wand, eh?" said Mr. Ollivander, coming to the front of the store. "You know, they say that the wand chooses its owner."   
  
"But…but…that would make me feel special!" said Terry, eyes bright.   
  
"That's right," said Mr. Ollivander. "Which is why I don't think it's going to happen in your case."   
  
"Oh," said Terry. "Why not?"   
  
Mr. Ollivander just looked at him. "Wands can tell how many legs a wizard has, Terry. You can't fool magic. So, tell you what. Just close your eyes, and grab a wand. We'll both hope for the best."   
  
"Okay!" Terry agreed readily.   
  
And that's exactly what Terry did.   
  
"You know," said Mr. Ollivander chuckling as he wrapped up Terry's wand in a box he found just laying around, "I don't think I've ever had someone come into the store that couldn't find a wand that would choose them. You're the first person to choose their own wand, Terry!"   
  
Terry beamed.   
  
"I'll never forget you, Terry. Never, in a million years," Mr. Ollivander told him, smiling at Terry's deformed body.  
  
Terry cried.   
  
"Good-bye now, Terry," Mr. Ollivander said, hobbling back into the store.   
  
Terry left, clutching his glorious prize under his arm. Just as he was leaving the store, like the one-legged person he is, and with no balance whatsoever, he dropped the box and wand onto the ground. Then, being Terry Boot through and through, he tripped over his phantom leg, and fell onto his own box, snapping his brand new wand in half.   
  
"I'll have to get another," Terry said out loud, laughing and getting up.   
  
He walked back into the store, and Mr. Ollivander hobbled back up to the front desk.   
  
"Can I help you, young lad?" he asked.   
  
"Hi again!" Terry said. "I need a new wand!"   
  
"Headed for Hogwarts, eh?" Mr. Ollivander asked.   
  
"Yes!" said Terry, unperturbed. "I still am, Mr. Ollivander. I can't believe I'm already on my second wand."   
  
"Where did you buy your other wand?" Mr. Ollivander asked, as he wrapped a random wand up in a box.   
  
"From you, Mr. Ollivander. Not more than thirty seconds ago! Thirty-one…thirty-two…"   
  
"That's funny…I don't remember you, and I remember everyone who's ever come into my store," Mr. Ollivander pondered.  
  
"You must remember my phantom leg!" Terry exclaimed, trying to hold out the phantom leg, which, as usual, didn't work out for Terry.   
  
"Sorry, I still can't place you," said Mr. Ollivander.   
  
"I'm Terry Boot!" Terry shouted at him.   
  
"Listen here, Jerry, I-" Mr. Ollivander never finished what he was going to say, as he suffered a massive coronary heart attack at that very moment. Terry, not wanting to be found at the scene of the crime, snuck out with his wand in hand.   
  
Luckily, Mr. Ollivander was only joking, as he did that with every customer that made him feel uncomfortable, and with a name like Terry Boot and a phantom leg, you couldn't feel more uncomfortable, even if you were one-legged yourself.   
  
Just then Professor Kettleburn appeared at Terry's side, clutching a small cage in his pan-like hands.   
  
"So, how did it go, Terry?" asked Professor Kettleburn, twirling the fine hairs of his blond goatee.   
  
"Well, actually, we should probably go back or call the fire brigade because-" Terry tried to inform Professor Kettleburn.  
  
"Never mind that, my boy, you and your childhood fantasies," Professor Kettleburn said fondly. "I have a present for you!"   
  
Terry's eyes misted over, and he actually began to sob.   
  
"No one ever gave me a present before!" Terry said, clutching at his sides.   
  
"Don't overexcite yourself, it most likely won't happen again. At any rate," Professor Kettleburn said, thrusting the cage at Terry, nearly knocking him into Knockturn Alley.   
  
"What is it?" Terry asked, shaking the cage, only to be rewarded by a long sharp meow.   
  
Professor Kettleburn chuckled, and said, "Why don't you open it? Curiosity did kill the cat." He laughed at his own cleverness.   
  
"Are you saying I am going to die?" Terry asked worriedly, eyes opened wide.   
  
"No, I just meant…wait… I guess I did say that. Let's see what happens. Open the cage!" Professor Kettleburn urged Terry.  
  
Terry shrunk back, holding the cage away from him and unlatching it carefully. Large glowing eyes shone from within, and out flew a small black cat, immediately digging its claws into Terry's worn and tattered jumper.   
  
"Hey look, he likes you," Professor Kettleburn said, as the cat urinated on all of Terry's packages.   
  
"This is nice and all," Terry began, trying to tear the cat's claws from the flesh of his jugular, "but I am allergic to…ah…ah…choo!" Terry sneezed all over the cat, which set off a chain of events too detailed to explain with mere words. Or maybe we're just lazy. Professor Kettleburn, immediately sensing the problem, cast a complicated spell which allowed Terry to breathe properly in the cat's presence. However, it didn't stop that crazy aforementioned chain of events that happened, that we won't be talking about.   
  
Anyway, Terry ended up with his stump stuck in the muffler of a magical car and Hagrid's ice-cream cones down his pants. The cat, which Terry was apt to name "Gouger" was running frantically around inside Hagrid's mole coat, trying in vain to capture one of the many mice that lived within.   
  
With another sneeze in the direction of Harry Potter, this one caused by smog from the muffler, Terry fell into the gutter. It wasn't the first time, and it wouldn't be the last that he sat in the stink of the Wizarding society.   
  
Harry wiped off his glasses and stepped over Terry, not even realizing he was there. Hagrid, on the other hand, was in a heated argument with Professor Kettleburn over the cat attack. Suddenly, as the cat jumped out of his coat, Hagrid forgot that the situation had even happened, and walked all over Professor Kettleburn, who fell into the gutter with Terry.   
  
"This is a familiar stench," Professor Kettleburn said, bemused, and shaking his stump.   
  
"Yes, yes it is," Terry replied, feeling dirtier than usual.   
  
When they had finally rubbed the excrement from their persons, they headed for Kings Cross Station.   
  
"In all seriousness, Terry, I kind of forgot about you. I was supposed to get you about two days ago, but then I got distracted by this mound of dirt outside my cabin. No, no, Terry, don't look like that. It's a Class A type of mound. Really good dirt! Really good form!" Professor Kettleburn droned on.  
  
"I live in dirt," Terry told Professor Kettleburn.   
  
"Of course you do, Terry!" he replied, clapping him on the back. "It does you good! Makes you a real man, and all that."   
  
Terry didn't really understand Professor Kettleburn's reasoning all the time, but he did know that he liked the way Professor Kettleburn lead him helter skelter all through the Wizarding world.   
  
When they arrived back at Terry's grandparent's house, Professor Kettleburn handed Terry a ticket, and told him that he'd see him later at Hogwarts. Terry looked down at his ticket with curiosity.   
  
"But Professor Kettleburn," he began. "This is a ticket for admission to 'Wonderful Witches Gentlemen's Club' in Hogsmeade! What's a gentlemen's club?"   
  
But Professor Kettleburn had already gone.


	7. The Journey From Wonderful Witches Gentl...

Terry's last month at the Barduses was uneventful. It was just full of more dirt and pain, as per usual.   
  
The encounter with first the drunken giant, and then second, the undead, still had an effect on Terry's grandparents. They wandered around the house, shaken, but attempting to do the things they used to do. Except now, Diddle put his puzzles together and framed them, and Nonny had taken to ordering take-out, and rearranging the food into nice designs on the family's rose patterned plates. Grudley had been so disturbed by being turned into a booze bottle, that he was beginning to lose weight and his coarse pig hair. Naturally, they blamed all of these changes on Terry.   
  
"It's your fault Grudley's emotionally scarred," Nonny whined to Terry one evening, as she arranged stir-fry in a semi-circle on a plate. "It's also your fault that Diddle isn't creating as much fire fuel as he used to. We're going to freeze, Terry, not that it matters to you, you sorry excuse for a cripple."   
  
Terry had been slightly taken aback by this. Being a cripple was the only thing he had ever been good at. Feeling down, he headed outside to his hole, and that's where he spent most of his time, except for meals.   
  
One night at the dinner table, Terry asked his grandparents, "Can I get a ride to King's Cross Station tomorrow?"   
  
"No," Diddle answered, chewing on some rice. "I'm sure you can walk. You have that one good leg. Besides, it's only twenty miles away…give or take twenty."   
  
"Diddle," Nonny began. "Do we really want Terry out in public for such a long time? Why don't we just call a taxi?"   
  
"Good idea, Nonny. We'll take money out of Terry's savings account to cover the fee. That should be the last of it," Diddle said, glaring at Terry as if it was painful even to have him at the table.   
  
"I've never ridden in a taxi cab before," Terry said excitedly, spraying Grudley with rice chunks. Grudley, in turn, lapped up Terry's saliva soaked rice bits.   
  
"Stop feeding Grudley from your own mouth!" Nonny snapped at her grandson. "We don't want to disease him or anything."   
  
Terry wiped his mouth with a napkin.   
  
"And stop using our good napkins! The grass is good enough for you. It's cleaner than you are, what with all the rain we've been having," Nonny added. "But I suppose you'd know, eh, Terry? Your little hole has turned into a swimming pool of sorts, hasn't it?"   
  
"The neighbors called it a cesspool," Terry told her.   
  
"Quiet, boy," Diddle said. "Don't talk back to your grandmother."   
  
"I wasn't!" Terry protested.   
  
"I saw that twitch in your leg. It means you're being disobedient, doesn't it, boy?" Diddle pressed.   
  
"No!" Terry argued. "It means it hurts!"   
  
"That's it!" Diddle exclaimed. "Take your pain outside to your hole, where we don't have to see it."   
  
And so Terry spent a miserable evening in the pouring rain.   
  
However, in the morning, the sun was shining with new promise for Terry, or at least that's what Terry liked to believe. The Barduses called a cab for him, and when the driver showed up, they kicked him good-bye, and threw his luggage at him.   
  
"And stay out!" they threatened his retreating form. Terry heard the slam of the door as his luggage was manhandled into the trunk of the cab. A large, surly looking Irish man took hold of the wheel, and they were off, spinning wildly into heavy traffic.   
  
When they got to King's Cross Station, the man quickly threw Terry's luggage onto the ground, tried to mug him, and sped off without his pay. Crippled kids made him nervous.   
  
Terry's little mouth hung agape as he looked up at the large public transportation building. He had never seen anything so beautiful in his life. It was while he was standing there, staring at the building in awe, that a family of three took pity on Terry, and approached him.   
  
"Are you lost, son?" the large man asked. Terry could tell that he was very wealthy, and his bushy, well manicured moustache twitched as he smiled at Terry.   
  
"Not yet!" Terry told him. "But I haven't tried to find platform nine and three quarters yet."   
  
"Oh!" the slender woman exclaimed, fingering her pearls, and moving aside to reveal a small girl Terry's age with spectacles and short, well cut black hair. "Lisa's headed for Hogwart's, too!"   
  
"Hi there, Lisa!" Terry said, being polite. Who knows where he acquired that habit? "I'm Terry. Terry Boot."   
  
Terry could tell that the family was friendly. The father was a little portly, but very jolly and good natured, and the mother was tall, thin, and very pretty. Terry could tell that she had a kind heart by the way she looked down at him and smiled without grimacing first. Their daughter was smiling shyly at Terry, and not even looking at his lack of leg.   
  
"Do you know how to get to the platform?" Lisa asked him. "I've been here before, but I haven't seen a platform nine and three quarters."   
  
"Well!" said Lisa's father cheerfully. "This will be an adventure then."   
  
"It must be somewhere between platforms nine and ten," Lisa's mother added, as they walked into the crowded building. They were somewhere around platform eight when they got their first clue.   
  
"Mandy, you had better not have forgotten your wand. I told you to make sure you packed it before we left the house," came a shrill, panicked voice from behind them. It belonged to a large woman, who was screaming at a younger, thinner version of herself.   
  
"Nevermind!" the girl said. "It's right here!"   
  
Terry and Lisa's family followed them to a barrier between platforms nine and ten, and that's when it appeared like mother and daughter just disappeared into the brickwork.   
  
The family and Terry stopped, confused. Surprisingly, it was Terry who reassured them and put them all back on the right foot.   
  
"If there's one thing I've learned about the magical world," he told them. "It's that it doesn't make any sense, and it's even less discreet."   
  
So Terry went first, dragging his luggage, and bravely walked into the barrier and through it. Sure enough, it was a gateway of sorts. He found himself standing in a large, open structure. A big engine was puffing steam, as Lisa and her family joined Terry on the platform.   
  
"Good show, son!" Lisa's father said, patting Terry's shoulder. "Well done!"   
  
Terry was about to hyperventilate under all of this well wishing.   
  
"Thank you, sir," he squeaked, tears of happiness threatening to spill out of his eyes.   
  
As Lisa and her family said their good-byes, Terry hopped, scuffled, and shuffled his way into a cabin on the Hogwarts Express. He was very excited about attending school. Maybe he would be able to take a woodworking class, and fashion himself a new leg out of wood. It might make him look daring if he wore a jaunty peg leg.   
  
Just then, Terry was trampled. "Whoa there, son! I didn't see you down there," a baggage boy laughed. "Do you have your ticket?"   
  
"No," Terry said sadly. "Professor Kettleburn gave me this, though."   
  
Terry handed the boy the ticket to the gentleman's club.   
  
"Hey! Thanks kid!" the boy exclaimed. "Get on the train, and don't tell anyone about this," he added with a wink.   
  
As Terry left, he managed to trip and entangle himself in about ten people's luggage.   
  
"Looks like another one for Ravenclaw!" the luggage boy called over to his buddy, kissing his ticket, and counting his lucky stars. "That Professor Kettleburn always did have good taste," he mumbled to himself.   
  
Terry managed to find an empty cabin, and settled himself on the cushioned seats. He was feeling a little lonely, but nothing that he wasn't already used to. He got himself ready for a good few hours of staring blankly out the window, when the door suddenly swung open.   
  
"Do you mind if I sit with you? Everywhere else is full," a red haired boy lied to Terry. His eyes widened in shock when he realized just what person he was speaking to. "You're, why you're," he stuttered out.   
  
"Terry!" Terry said, standing up shakily to reach for the red haired boy's hand.   
  
"Crippled!" the boy said in utter surprise. "I've never met anyone like you, but I've had a sheltered childhood."   
  
"A polar bear took it!" Terry said, again proud that his leg was snatched by a two ton mammal of frightening size.   
  
"Wicked," the boy breathed. Suddenly, from down the corridor came a shout of "Harry Potter's sitting alone! Whoever gets there first is his new best friend!"   
  
The red haired nitwit bolted out of the room faster than a cheetah on speed.   
  
Terry hoped that even when the kid was the patsy of "The Boy Who Lived", he would remember the moment that he had shared with poor, one-legged Terry Boot.   
  
The engine started, and the train took off from the station. Terry watched all the families waving to their children that they were sending off for a year at Hogwarts. He liked to pretend he had family out there in the crowd, but his fantasy was ruined when someone threw a rotten egg at his window. It was probably an accident. After all, they couldn't see he was crippled from the platform.   
  
"Hey there!" said a familiar, cheerful voice from the doorway. It was the wandless girl from the platform. "Mind if I sit with you?"   
  
"No," said Terry, looking at her in awe.  No one had ever voluntarily spent time with him before.   
  
"My name's Mandy. Mandy Brocklehurst. Who are you?" she asked, sitting down in the seat across from Terry.   
  
"Terry Boot," he replied, a little warily. "Don't you see I'm crippled? Doesn't that bother you?"   
  
"You're crippled?" asked Mandy. "I didn't even notice!" she added, taking off her rose tinted glasses. She settled herself comfortably on the seat across from Terry, and smiled at him.   
  
"I like you already," Terry said sincerely.   
  
"I like you too, Terry," Mandy told him with a big smile. "You and your crazy phantom leg. Hey, would you like to share this lunch my mom packed for me?"   
  
"Lunch?" Terry asked, amazed. "Someone voluntarily gave you food? Did the government make them?"   
  
Mandy looked quizzically at Terry, and then smiled. "No, Terry, does the government make your family feed you?"   
  
"Not anymore!" Terry told her. "They gave up trying after awhile."   
  
Suddenly, the door swung open once again, and another familiar face popped into the compartment.   
  
"Is there room in here for me?" asked Lisa from the doorway.   
  
"Sure!" said Mandy. "Come on in!"   
  
"Oh! Hi there, Terry. It's great to see you again! I see you got settled in right away on the train. It's been a madhouse for me," Lisa said, sitting down.  
  
Then Lisa looked over at Mandy, and said, smiling, "Hi there! My name's Lisa. Lisa Turpin. I'm so excited about Hogwarts. Are you a first year, also?"   
  
"I am!" said Mandy. "My name's Mandy. Did you notice that Terry was crippled?"   
  
"Oh, hey! I didn't even notice your absent appendage," Lisa exclaimed smartly.   
  
"Most people don't notice me at all!" Terry blurted out in true Terry fashion. "It doesn't matter if you don't notice that I'm crippled!"   
  
"Okay!" said Lisa, sitting down next to Terry.   
  
Terry looked at his new best friends, smiling over the scene proudly, as if he had just won a marathon- which he could never really do, you know, with that phantom leg. Lisa Turpin was a tall slender girl, with keen bright green eyes and startling shiny pitch hair cut bluntly at her jaw line. She already wore her Hogwarts robes, which looked baggy and foreign on her small build.   
  
Terry could tell she had been Muggle raised, what with the whole experience on the platform and all. Looking at Lisa was like looking at himself, besides the sad sorry state of his everything, and of course the missing leg. In fact, Lisa herself looked rather wealthy, with a soft, kind smile placed on her pale, regal face, and tiny spectacles nearly dangling from the tip of her long pointy nose. She grinned over at Terry in what seemed a friendly glance, though could easily have been mistaken for pity mixed with knowing she was better than him.   
  
Mandy Brocklehurst was nearly the exact opposite of Lisa. Her eyes were large and dark brown, and her hair was a light auburn, flying all over the place. She had a smattering of freckles across her nose, just like Terry, and a ready smile, which Terry warily thought that within the hour would be laughing at him. Unlike Lisa and Terry, Mandy had been raised by a Wizarding family, and had a few hand-me-downs. It was nothing to be ashamed of, like a missing appendage.   
  
After an hour or so of talking to each other quietly, the old witch on the train rolled by with her trolley full of sweets. Terry became so hungry at the sight of the magical candies that he almost drooled onto his shoe.   
  
"Do any of you want anything off the trolley?" the old witch asked, kindly.   
  
"Do you have a leg?" Terry asked seriously.   
  
"No, but how about a nice chocolate frog?" she offered.   
  
"We'll take three of everything," Lisa told the old witch, whipping out her plastic. "Do you take Master Card?"   
  
That's how Terry got his first, real taste of the Wizarding world. Literally.  There were so many candies to choose from, that Terry almost passed out from pure joy.   
  
"Try the frogs, first," Mandy said, biting into her screaming frog. "They're my favorite."   
  
What they don't tell you on the box of chocolate frogs is that they scream in agony going all the way down, but Terry didn't mind. After all, it was all magic, wasn't it?   
  
"Terry, what wizarding card did you get?" asked Mandy, leaning over to look at the small piece of cardboard in his chocolate frog wrapper.  
  
Terry picked up the card inside the chocolate frog package, and turned it over excitedly. It was blank.   
  
"Odd, there isn't anything on your card," Mandy said, shrugging her shoulders good naturedly. "Here, you can have one of my cards," she said, fluffing her wad of hair and snorting, handing Terry her Dumbledore card.   
  
"Dumbledore?" Terry asked, looking at the card. "Wow, thanks! Now I get it!" Terry said, clutching the card for dear life, as though he thought it might disappear at any moment. The Dumbledore on the card looked up at Terry and gasped, blushing apologetically.   
  
"If I were real I'd apologize for letting that polar bear gnaw off your leg," the card Dumbledore said, stroking his beard. "Too bad I'm not." And then he cast a spell and the card went up in flames.   
  
"Can they do that?" asked Terry, but the other girls were too busy looking in the other direction, for a large boy had just burst into the room, sobbing.   
  
"HAS ANYONE IN HERE SEEN MY FROG?!?" he asked insanely, pulling out pieces of his hair. "Already I know that I am going to have the worst luck ever!" Then he looked at Terry's stump, and a huge smile lit up his face. "Never mind. You'll always be worse off than me, always."   
  
Terry frowned, and clutched his stump.   
  
"Thanks guys, you've really cheered me up!" the boy said manically, and left the room screaming, "HAS ANYONE SEEN A LEG…I MEAN, FROG?!?"   
  
Just as the lard bag left, a thin, bucked tooth girl scampered into the room, a dictionary attached to her hand. "Hey, I am Hermione…" her eyes glanced down to Terry's lack o' leg. "Oh gawd. There is no magic to fix that!" She promptly passed out at the thought. Mandy dragged her unconscious body out into the hall, just to be trampled on by three boys, pushing their way into the cabin.   
  
Lisa rolled her eyes. "Can't we get any privacy?"   
  
The three boys entered anyway, and Terry recognized the middle one. It was his friend from the robe shop, Draco Malfoy.   
  
"Is it true?" the pale boy spat out. "They're saying down the train that Harry Potter's in this compartment… and wait… you're that stubby kid from the robe shop."   
  
"That's me!" Terry said excitedly.   
  
"Hey!" broke in Lisa, who looked quite a bit better off than Draco, as she polished her platinum glasses. "Don't call Terry stubby! I'm sure it is bad for his self esteem, and will have long term effects."   
  
Mandy nodded, and glared at the boys.   
  
At any other time Draco Malfoy would have taken this, and Lisa's obvious wealth, as a grand offense. If there was one thing Draco hated more than Muggles, it was Muggles with more money than he had. He should have been enraged.   
  
"This isn't even worth it," Draco said, scratching his arm, yawning. "I'll see you people around." And they left.   
  
"Well, he sure was rude," Lisa said, glaring at the boy's retreating form. Mandy nodded her head in agreement.   
  
"That was the son of Lucius Malfoy," Mandy explained, wrinkling up her nose. "My father works with him at the Ministry of Magic. Daddy's the receptionist at the "Misuse of Muggle Artifacts," station. Lucius is always skulking about in there. I mean, I'm annoyed by Muggles as much as the next wizard, but Lucius Malfoy despises them. He's like obsessed with them. Daddy says he must be quite the masochist."   
  
Terry hadn't been listening much to the conversation but his little ears perked up when he heard the word "masochist". For some odd reason that Terry guessed could only be integral to the plot, it struck a feeling of profound terror into his heart, and his stub burned violently.   
  
"Ouch!" Terry yelped, clutching at his stub and rubbing it soothingly.   
  
"What's wrong?" Lisa asked with a concerned look on her face.   
  
"It's my stump," he said, frowning. "Sometimes it just burns."   
  
Mandy patted him on the shoulder and smiled sympathetically. "Here, Terry," she said, handing him a small colorful box. "Have one of Berti Bott's Every Flavor Beans!"   
  
Terry opened the box and poured a few beans into his hand. "I like beans," he commented before popping a greenish looking candy into his mouth. For a few moments his face held the same blissful ignorance it always had. But, as Terry's taste buds warmed up, a look of complete horror and fear filled his eyes. He spit the bean out onto the floor and coughed dramatically.   
  
"That tasted like the time I went insane from the hunger and licked Grudley, my grandparent's pig," he said, little tears welling up in his eyes.   
  
"Oh," Mandy said, hiding a small smile. "That must have been one of the vomit flavored ones."   
  
"Why would anyone make vomit flavored beans?" Lisa asked, looking down at the candies in Terry's hand.   
  
"This is the magical world," Mandy said in an exasperated tone, as if that explained all.   
  
"Oh," Lisa said dumbly. "I can't imagine that Berti fellow would sell a lot of beans."   
  
"But he does," Mandy said smartly. "Berti Bott's Every Flavor Beans are everyone's favorite wizarding candy!"   
  
Terry, inspecting the beans in his hand, picked up a bright red one and carefully placed it in his mouth. He had the same reaction as before, the bean falling to the floor in a puddle of Terry juices.   
  
"Oh, no," Lisa said. "Another vomit flavored one?"   
  
"No, that one was cherry," Terry said, gagging.   
  
"You need to watch out for those shifty fruit flavored ones," Mandy added.   
  
The rest of the trip went smoothly, as Terry talked both girls into a deep sleep. They asked him about his family, and he had gotten three words into it, "I live with…" and they had fallen into unconsciousness.   
  
After a few hours of quiet pondering, the train pulled into Hogsmeade, and unloaded all of its passengers. Waiting for them was Hagrid, who was calling out stupidly, "Firs' years this way! Follow me!"   
  
And all of the "firs" years did, including Terry, and as we all know, Terry loves to be included.


	8. The Sorting Mishap

The first years were greeted at the edge of the lake with the sight of an entire flotilla of dilapidated, wannabe sea-faring row boats.

"Hop in!" Hagrid said, jumping into a boat which promptly broke and sank under his weight.  Hagrid didn't seem to mind.  "Grab onto a plank and start kickin'!" he shouted, chucking a sodden board at a first year.

As the first years climbed out of the lake, they were greeted by a foreboding rocky shore line, and an even more foreboding castle.   
  
"We're living in a dungeon?" Terry asked aloud, shaking water from his ear, and thinking he'd been tricked by his grandparents into living in squalor... again.  
  
"Welcome to Hogwarts," Hagrid told them. "Best wizarding school in the world."   
  
"I guess it's a real fixer upper," Lisa said, turning up her nose at the moss infested stone that was the castle.   
  
"No wonder," Mandy muttered. "Dumbledore's in charge."   
  
"Blasphemy!" Hagrid shouted, trying to smite them with his umbrella. "I don't take no guff from firs' years like you. 'Specially when it involves puttin' down Dumbledore. That man saved me life, ya hear? He gave me a second chance here with ya kids, to nurture ya and stuff."   
  
"Dumbledore's even crueler than we imagined," Lisa murmured.   
  
"Dumbledore is the one who lost my leg!" Terry exclaimed.   
  
"That's it, you," Hagrid said, advancing on poor Terry. "I don't like yer lies."   
  
Terry tried to recoil, and fell in the lake. Satisfied that the giant squid would do his dirty work, Hagrid led the children up toward the castle and in through the great, oak front doors.   
  
When they got to the main castle proper, all the first years were gathered into the main hall, and were told to wait.   
  
"I'm so excited!" Terry squealed, as he caught up to his friends. "I've never had anything to really be excited about before!"   
  
"I'll believe it," Lisa told Terry, gently patting him on the shoulder. "But you'll have to calm down for now. I don't want you falling over again or anything."   
  
Suddenly a door was swung open, right into Terry's face. He was thrown against the stone wall, and vaguely heard Hagrid tell someone that they had arrived.   
  
"Yay," moaned Terry. "I've made it to Hogwarts."   
  
Mandy helped Terry straighten up, and they both hobbled back to the main group; one because of an absent leg, and the other because of the weight of a crippled boy on her shoulder. You guess who is who.   
  
"Who's that?" Terry whispered to Lisa, sending sprays of Terry spit all over her Hogwarts robes.   
  
"Professor McGonagall," Lisa answered, just as the woman was leaving. "She told us to wait here, while she goes back into the Great Hall. We're going to be sorted soon!"   
  
"Sorted?" asked Terry, afraid that it was something only people with two legs could do.   
  
"Yes," explained Lisa. "They're going to tell us which house we're going to be in."   
  
"I'm going to be in Slytherin or Gryffindor," Terry told his new friends proudly. "My parents were in those houses."   
  
"Uhm, sure Terry, reach for the stars," Mandy told him.   
  
"I hope I studied enough," the buck toothed girl from the train mumbled next to them.   
  
"Don't worry," Terry told her, smiling. "They won't quiz us or test us on anything."   
  
"How do you know?" she asked him, curious.   
  
"Because," Terry told her, drawing out the word. "They wanted me here, and I'm crippled and kind of dumb."   
  
The girl smiled at Terry. "Why, you're absolutely right! Of course you're dumb and crippled. They wouldn't test me, because then they'd have to test you, too. Thanks!"   
  
Terry smiled, and his expression quickly turned to one of shock. Floating in through the wall were about twenty ghosts, all of them making faces at the students, obviously attempting to frighten them.   
  
"What the fuck?!" Harry Potter screamed, pulling out his wand. "Kill them again!"   
  
The bucktoothed girl, who Mandy had gathered was named Hermione, said, "You can't kill ghosts twice. I read that in Hogwarts, A Blood Spattered History. Very interesting light reading material, if I do say so myself."   
  
"And you do," Mandy quipped.   
  
"Those are dead people?" Terry asked, clearly confused about the fact that these transparent people were communicating from beyond the grave.   
  
"Hello there," a ghost said, smiling, as she floated up to Terry.   
  
"No!" Terry shouted. "Stop trying to frighten and kill me!"   
  
"Terry, that's the ghost of Matilda Dumbledore," Hermione explained, rolling her eyes in Terry's direction.   
  
"Oh yeah! The woman who ruined Dumbledore," Terry blurted out.   
  
"I didn't read that in any books about Hogwarts," Hermione pondered.   
  
"That man only ruined himself," retorted Matilda.   
  
Suddenly, the doors were opened again, and the first years were told to move on through into the Great Hall. When Terry looked up at the ceiling, he noticed that there was just a huge, gaping hole where the roof should have been.   
  
"These people are more destitute than we thought," Lisa commented.   
  
"Actually," Hermione explained, "it's enchanted to look like the sky outside. I read that in Buildings of Britain That Are Missing Ceilings, A History, Abridged."   
  
Terry tried to absorb this, along with the fact that these people didn't have electricity. All of the floating candles were starting to make him nervous. He didn't want to offend someone and have them enchant a candle to set him on fire. Getting set on fire was something Terry had learned not to enjoy. He sympathized a little with Matilda, even though she had been burned at the stake, and Terry had only been burned with a hot, fireplace poker.   
  
Terry started getting nervous. There were too many people around. What if he did something really stupid, and people finally noticed for once? Terry's knees would have been knocking together, if he had more than one.   
  
The first years were gathered together at the front of the room. Terry felt the eyes of the rest of the students on his back. He was hoping that no one was staring openly at his missing leg. He hated when people gawked, laughed, burned, and threw things at him.   
  
Professor McGonagall put a hat on a stool in front of the first years, and then stepped back. The hat cleared its throat, if that's possible, and started to sing in a throaty falsetto.   
  
Welcome, you little shits  
To your brand new life  
I'll kill you in your sleep  
With my rusty, metal knife  
So you'd better watch your back  
Don't step out of the lines  
Cause Dumbledore's a madman  
And he'll break open all your spines  
You can't run from me  
And you certainly can't hide  
Cause everything you think  
I can see it there, inside  
You might belong to Gryffindor  
And if you do, tough luck  
Because if you're looking for sympathy  
They don't give a fuck  
Or maybe you're for Hufflepuff  
Enjoy your stay in hell  
They're really fat and boring  
And that's all I'm going to tell  
Or perhaps in Ravenclaw  
Is where you'll find your keep  
I'd tell you more about them  
But then I'd fall asleep  
Or yet stuck in Slytherin  
Those snooty, stuck up, bores  
They're a bunch of momma's boys  
And the girls all fucking whores  
So buck it up! Shut your trap!  
It's time to learn your fate  
You're all a bunch of wankers  
So what are you scared of, mate?  
  
Of course, Terry has the attention span of a five year old, so he didn't hear all the words correctly, but when the hat was done, he applauded just as loudly as everyone else. Then McGonagall began reading names. Terry was excited. She was doing it in alphabetical order, and though Terry didn't really know his alphabet, he knew that "Boot" was somewhere near the beginning. Maybe even the first letter!   
  
Well, Terry wasn't the first, obviously, but soon enough he was called up to the stool. Whispers and murmurs were shooting around the Great Hall.   
  
"I don't believe it!" a third year said, mouth flying open. "He's crippled!"   
  
"A crippled kid at Hogwarts?" a boy asked, scratching his head.   
  
Terry got himself settled on the stool, and then the sorting hat was plopped unceremoniously on his head.   
  
Immediately, he heard a voice from inside the hat speaking to him.   
  
"Hmm…yes, I see," the sorting hat mumbled in a croaking, cracking voice. "Yes, yes, there's a lot of…zzzzzzz."   
  
Terry wondered if the sorting hat fell asleep for everyone, but he got the sinking suspicion that this was its first time. "Ahem, sorting hat?" Terry asked it. "Can you wake up and sort me, please?"   
  
"Whoa, did I fall asleep?" the hat asked, puzzled.   
  
"Yeah," said Terry. "On my head."   
  
"Hey, sorry kid," the sorting hat told Terry. "That's never happened before. You must be the heir to, I mean, sorted into…RAVENCLAW!" it shouted to the Great Hall.   
  
Terry tumbled off the stool, and went to sit at the Ravenclaw table, which would have broken into applause, if everyone hadn't been so shocked at Terry's deformity, and the fact that he was, actually, in their house. Shortly after he was sorted, his friends Mandy and Lisa were put into Ravenclaw as well.   
  
After the ceremony was over, and everyone was done applauding for Zabini, Blaise, who strolled ambiguously down to the Slytherin table, Dumbledore got down to the business of telling everyone, while he was in a drunken stupor, what to do.   
  
Terry wasn't exactly listening, because he was too busy watching Dumbledore weave all over the podium he was standing on. But he thought he heard Dumbledore say something very odd.   
  
"Welcome," Dumbledore greeted, "to a new year at this cesspool. Before we begin our feast, I'd like to say a few words, and here they are: Take! Terry! Leg! I! Your! Will! Other! Try to figure that one out, jackasses!"   
  
"Is he a bit touched in the head?" Lisa asked to no one in particular.   
  
"No, he's just drunk and ruined," Terry said. "At least, that's what Professor Snape told me. I hope I have him for a teacher. He's a really nice guy, and he even saved my life!"   
  
Terry tried to wave at Professor Snape, but his friendly greeting was returned with a fist shake and a mouthed, "Don't test me boy."   
  
Just then their empty plates were suddenly filled with tons of steaming food. There were things on Terry's plate that he had never known existed, like corn and beef.   
  
"Pass the gruel and rocks, please," Terry asked. And when no one replied, he asked, "What? What did I say?"   
  
"Terry," Lisa began. "Eat what's on your plate. We'll worry about rocks and gruel later, okay?"   
  
"All right!" Terry said, thinking he had compromised.   
  
When dinner was over, Dumbledore stood up, and silenced the room with a wave of his hand.   
  
"Ahem!" he coughed. "Shut up, you little ingrates! Now that you've eaten all of my food, I have a few things to tell you, so listen up, or else. First of all, stay the hell out of my forest. I keep a bootlegging business in there, and I don't want you kids looting my goods," Dumbledore glared at the Hufflepuff table. "Second, Filch wants you to keep your grubby hands off your wands when you're in the corridors. Third, we'll have tryouts for that broom game we all know and love and that shouldn't be named," he looked warily at the authors. "I advise none of you to try out, as the teams have already been picked by the Heads of Houses. Finally, the third floor corridor, on the right hand side, is out of bounds, and if anyone catches you even thinking about going in there, I'll kill you myself. And now, before we go to bed, let's sing the school song. I had better hear all of you," he finished, glaring at Slytherin.   
  
Once again, Terry had failed to pay attention, so when everyone around him and at the surrounding tables began to sing, he was quite taken by surprise.   
  
Hogwarts, Hogwarts, ridiculously named Hogwarts  
That creates the bonds between wizards young and old  
Don't go making friends in other houses, though  
Listen, and do as you are told.  
We're a bunch of stupid wizards  
And to be political, witches, too  
Hogwarts should have higher standards  
But then it would have excluded you  
This song is really just filler  
Don't bother memorizing a word  
Even though nothing in it makes sense  
The original was far more absurd  
  
After the singing of the school song, they were supposed to be lead to their dorms by a Ravenclaw prefect, but Peeves, the untrustworthy poltergeist, got to them first. The first years, not really knowing anything about how Hogwarts or its system worked, blindly followed Peeves into the dark depths of the castle.   
  
As a result of this error by the Ravenclaw first years, and their scared prefects, the first years ended up in an underground catacomb where Peeves tried to convince Terry to hobble his way into an occupied tomb.   
  
"I may not be the brightest wizard in the herd, but I don't think I should be laying on the scattered remains of this mummified corpse," Terry said warily, and then yelped in terror as his stump physically twitched, a searing shot of pain traveled through his entire body.   
  
"Youch!" Terry clapped a hand to his stump, as the mummified corpse sat up and placed a cold, scaly hand on Terry's shoulder. The first years screamed in terror as the turban topped mummy stood.   
  
"Oh, that's just Professor Quirrell," Mandy said, realizing the corpse was really just a hunched over man covered in his own feces. Quirrell attempted to look offended, but part of his turban fell off, and he had to run off to deal with that, moonwalking out of the room.   
  
"Indeed it is," said a disembodied voice from the corner of the room. There was a long dramatic pause, and then Snape stepped forward, his arms outstretched in a manner that made him appear to be some sort of bat…man….boy.   
  
"Hey, it's my good friend Professor Snape!" Terry bellowed, smiling broadly. Snape sneered back at him, whipping out a small Zippo lighter, and lighting it in a menacing manner. "He started me on fire!" Terry added proudly.   
  
"I best lead you miscreants up to your dorms," Snape said coldly, glaring at the poltergeist, the flames of his lighter licking at his sleeves. "And you Peeves, I will deal with you later." Peeves cackled, and disappeared.   
  
So, Snape led the scarred for life, rag tag group of Ravenclaws to the dorms, and then slithered off to glare suspiciously at Harry Potter.   
  
It was right before Terry climbed the stairs to bed that he remembered something that had been pressing on his mind since he had put on the sorting hat. He thought that since Lisa was the smartest and one of the only people he knew, he'd ask her.   
  
"Hey, Lisa," Terry called over to his slender comrade who was climbing the girl's staircase. "How can someone be an 'air'?"   
  
"I'll tell you tomorrow, Terry," she told him, kind of confused as to how he couldn't have known what it was on his own.   
  
Terry, satisfied with her answer, climbed the staircase to his own dormitory, and when he got up there, he gave a gasp of delight. His trunks were already unpacked, and lo and behold, there was an actual bed for Terry to sleep in.   
  
"No more holes or showers for me," he said to himself, his roommates looking at him oddly. He would have asked them what their names were, but he was really tired, and it really didn't matter in the end.   
  
Terry got ready for bed, and climbed in between the smooth, soft blankets. He laid his blond head on the pillow, and sighed in contentment. Hogwarts was full of surprises, and so far, Terry hadn't been hurt…at least too badly.  


	9. The Potions Disaster

The next morning, Terry awoke to a new, bright shining world, which in Terry's mind was also full of promise. A promise, that is, of no pain. This was indeed the place for Terry; a place where he wouldn't get beaten, mauled, or abused.   
  
Terry put on his Hogwart's robes, combed down his hair while looking in a mirror, and tied his shoes.   
  
He descended the stone stairs, and entered the Ravenclaw common room. The study area was filled with comfortable, over stuffed blue chairs, and a fireplace with the Ravenclaw crest on it. There was a plush grey and blue carpet on the floor, and tapestries on the walls kept the room from being drafty. Surrounding three of the four walls were bookcases, which held a plethora of books, wizarding and otherwise.   
  
When Terry got to the bottom of the staircase, he saw to his astonishment that Lisa and Mandy were waiting for him, so that they could all go down to breakfast together.   
  
"Are you waiting to hit me?" Terry questioned, looking nervous in his new Hogwarts robes.   
  
"Terry, I-" Lisa began.   
  
"'…want to hurt you'?" Terry finished for Lisa, with a question in his big, blue eyes.   
  
"No, no," Lisa added hastily, as Mandy grabbed Terry before he could trip and fall into the fireplace. "I'm going to tell you what an 'heir' is. You wanted to know, right?"   
  
"I know what 'air' is," Terry said haughtily, as he had obviously forgotten everything the sorting hat had told him.   
  
"Are you sure you know what an heir is, Terry? It's a person, you see…"   
  
Terry watched Lisa give him the definition of an "heir", but he was watching her with a clearly vacant expression. Absorbing nothing of what Lisa said, he beamed at her when she was finished nonetheless, and exclaimed, "Thanks, Lisa! You're a pal!"   
  
"You're welcome, Terry. Now, let's go get some breakfast," Lisa said, frowning slightly.  
  
Don't be fooled. Lisa knew that Terry had heard nothing of her explanation, but she figured he'd learn what an "heir" was one of these days. Most likely the hard way, as that seemed to be how Terry learned everything.   
  
"I'm starving," Mandy whined, as they wandered down to the Great Hall. It took them quite a while to actually find the hall, seeing how the staircases moved and shifted with the changing winds.   
  
When they reached the entrance to the Great Hall Lisa pondered aloud, "I wonder what we're having for breakfast this morning?"   
  
"I hope it's not dirt!" Terry worried. He was sick of eating dirt. Most of his childhood had been spent eating dirt, grass, and other various fun outside organic foods.   
  
Terry, Lisa, and Mandy headed for the Ravenclaw table, and took a seat next to a couple of other first years. The seat next to Terry was empty, and still was, really, after the Grey Lady sat down next to him.   
  
"Do they serve dirt here?" Terry asked, worriedly. The fact that the Grey Lady was a ghost didn't seem to bother him. Obviously he had gotten over his sudden, but intense fear of the paranormal in one night.   
  
"They won't make you eat dirt, my dear," said the Ravenclaw house ghost. "We only have nutritious things to eat here and maybe sweets later," the grey lady finished with a wink.   
  
"My grandpa says that gruel and rocks would do me good," Terry told her, wide-eyed at the prospect of eating real food two days in a row.   
  
"Hmm…" the grey lady murmured. She didn't like to argue with children about rules their guardians had set down, so instead she filled a plate with bacon, eggs, and toast, and pushed it toward Terry.   
  
"Why don't we try this instead?" she told him.   
  
"I like real food. Sometimes it's hard to pretend that stones are eggs, because eggs are supposed to be runny inside, and stones are only full of pain."   
  
As Terry was eating, he noticed the Bloody Baron waving something odd at him from across the Great Hall. As Terry squinted at the object, he suddenly became filled with a feeling of longing.   
  
"That ghost has my phantom leg!" Terry shouted, and sprinted across the hall, only to lose the ghost as he floated through a wall. Suddenly, he felt Professor Kettleburn's meaty, sweaty hand on his shoulder.   
  
"Won't do you no good, Terry, my lad," he said, shaking his head. "That Baron has my leg, too, but they're just phantom appendages. You can't put them back on, you know?"   
  
But Terry didn't know. He didn't really know a lot of anything, so it wasn't an unusual feeling for him. However, if there was one thing Terry thought he knew, it was that he desperately wanted his leg back, in ghost form or not. It took a lot of coercing, but eventually Professor Kettleburn got him to sit back down at the table. He put him in between Lisa and Mandy, so as to distract him from his leg longing.   
  
Distressed and without really thinking, as per usual, Terry took hold of his goblet, and drank his fill of the thick, orangey substance within. When he put down the goblet, eyes bulging, mouth full of the mystery liquid, he asked, "What did I just put in my mouth?" thusly spraying the entire Ravenclaw table with Terry saliva mixed with the mystery orange substance.   
  
Luckily, the Ravenclaws were used to being spit on by then, so they just continued with their breakfast.   
  
"That's pumpkin juice, Terry," the Grey Lady explained, refilling his glass. "Everyone at Hogwarts loves their pumpkin juice."   
  
Terry began to cry.   
  
"What's wrong, Terry?" the Grey Lady asked, looking at him with concern in her transparent eyes.   
  
"Once again I'm different from everyone else," he bemoaned, wiping fat tears from his rosy cheeks.  
  
"You don't like it?" she asked him, growing afeared. No one had never not liked pumpkin juice.   
  
"How did they make it?" he asked, sniffing and gazing with amazement at the potent brew. He couldn't imagine people squeezing pumpkins to extract the juice. He could only imagine pumpkins being thrown at him at a fast rate.   
  
"Well, it's a bit of a secret, but I think I can trust you, Terry, seeing how you hate it and all. Besides, no one would listen to you anyway, what with…" and she gestured at his absent leg. "You see, everyday Hogwarts buys a thousand pumpkin pies. The hired help, also known as the enslaved, picks the pie crusts off the pies, then takes the filling, mixes it with milk, and pours it into these goblets you see before you."   
  
Everyone at the Ravenclaw table stared warily into their goblets.   
  
"I can still taste the enslavement in my pumpkin juice," a fifth year whined.   
  
"Can I have something else to drink?" Terry asked, thirst in his eyes.   
  
"I'm sorry, Terry, but we don't go in for your Muggle fads, like water and pure milk, but here, have some butterbeer."   
  
Terry didn't really mind the butterbeer too much. It tasted a lot like butterscotch, but with more alcohol in it. It really added a boost to your morning, Terry thought.   
  
After breakfast, Terry weaved his way inebriatedly upstairs to History of Magic, where he proceeded to sleep off his drunken state, after the basic introductions. At the end of their first lecture, Mandy shook Terry, and both she and Lisa helped cart him off to Charms, after handing him the day's notes.   
  
"I'm sorry I got drunk," Terry bemoaned. "I didn't mean to."   
  
"We know, Terry. You seem to do a lot of things on accident," Lisa said, calmly.   
  
"Are you talking about the polar bear?" Terry blinked and hiccupped.   
  
"Why? Does your leg hurt again?" Mandy asked him, as she and Lisa tried to figure out what polar bear Terry could possibly be talking about.   
  
"No. I just…always wanted…vegetables," Terry finished, and fell back asleep.   
  
Charms was a big to-do for Terry, partly because of his drunken state, but also because wand magic just didn't seem to suit Terry. It was something with his hand-eye coordination that had him confounded.   
  
Lunch woke Terry up, and refusing the butterbeer the grey lady offered him again, he managed to walk relatively by himself and normally to the Transfiguration classroom with Mandy and Lisa.   
  
"Is Transfiguration another wand class?" Terry asked Lisa.   
  
"Yes, it is," Mandy interrupted. "Didn't you know about what you were getting yourself into at Hogwarts? I tried to learn all about my classes before I came here."   
  
"I didn't even know I was a wizard until a few months ago," Terry said, clutching at his textbooks.   
  
"Well, I hear Transfigurations is the most difficult class, besides Potions," Lisa said. "I heard that Hermione Granger quoting some rubbish from Complicated Classes and Lasses: A Girl's Guide to Hogwarts."   
  
"I heard that Professor McGonagall is a real piece of work. I guess she had some kind of nervous breakdown last semester when Dumbledore released all the house elves only to enslave them again for gambling purposes," Mandy added in. "So, we best not be late."   
  
The trio quickly headed up to McGonagall's classroom, basically carrying Terry half the way there. Once seated in the cramped classroom, Terry turned to Lisa, looking a bit green in the face.   
  
"Lisa," Terry began, rubbing his head. "Why is this room spinning? Is it some kind of, special revolving room? This school seems quite fond of alliteration. So that must be it."   
  
"Terry," Mandy said, vying in on their conversation. "The room isn't spinning, you are." And that was when Terry realized he was standing in front of the class spinning in circles.   
  
Just then the door creaked open and Professor McGonagall entered, her emerald robes billowing behind her. "Mr. Boot, would you please take your seat," she scolded, which sounded in Terry's mind a lot like, "I'll gut you and paint my chambers with your blood."   
  
So Terry sat down.   
  
The rest of the class quickly filed in, and soon the class began.   
  
"Transfigurations is one of the toughest classes Hogwarts has to offer. I expect quite a bit more from you Ravenclaws than say, those dawdling Hufflepuffs," McGonagall stated, seemingly unaware that half the class was filled with Hufflepuffs. "This class involves courage and loyalty, so naturally the Gryffindors will be getting higher marks than you. It has nothing to do with the fact that I like the Gryffindors more than anyone else."   
  
The Ravenclaws weren't exactly buying this game of McGonagall's, but the Hufflepuffs were lapping it up like starving puppies.   
  
McGonagall then demonstrated how much better she would always be than her students at Transfigurations by turning her desk into a pig and back again.   
  
"Grudley!" Terry squeaked, as for a brief moment, he thought he was back at his grandparent's house on Privet Drive. The pig McGonagall and transfigured looked almost exactly like his pot bellied relative.   
  
The class was full of more explanations and things not to do when waving a wand in the air, and then they were set free again for their last class of the day, Potions.   
  
"Does Potions involve wands?" Terry asked Lisa, as they headed downstairs to the dungeons. Terry was really getting tired of waving his magical projector around. He just wanted to do something simple for once. With a shock, he realized something that had been brimming on the edge of his mind ever since the beginning of Transfigurations, "What if I'm not cut out for school and receiving an education?" Terry thought to himself.   
  
"What's wrong, Terry?" Mandy asked, catching the dejected look on his freckled face.   
  
"I don't think I'm ready for school yet," Terry told her sadly.   
  
"Why?" asked Mandy. "Do you miss being home?"   
  
"No!" Terry exclaimed. "I don't miss my grandparents or their pig. I just think that I'm never going to be able to keep up with all these two legged kids."   
  
"Terry," Lisa said, dragging out his name. "Of course you can keep up. We'll help you, of course, and you're not dumb, just crippled."   
  
"It's still a handicap," Terry told her, but he was frowning less.   
  
"Yes, but it's not a mental handicap," Lisa pointed out.   
  
"Which would be worse than being crippled, I think," Mandy jumped in. Lisa glared at her, but Terry didn't notice the ambiguity in Mandy's statement.   
  
"You're right, Mandy!" Terry said. "Suddenly, I'm really looking forward to Potions. Let's get going!"   
  
The Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs lined up outside the Potions classroom and in only a few minutes were greeted by the surly Professor Snape. He came walking down the hallway, robes billowing out behind him in his standard manner. His hair and face glistened in the candle light from all of the grease on his body, but no one would have thought to make fun of him…at least on the outside.   
  
"Get inside, get inside," he grumbled, as the class filed in warily. Their Potions professor looked a lot more foreboding than the rest of the professors at the school. The students scurried into the classroom, and hoped that the Potions class wouldn't be as severe as its professor.   
  
"Hiya, Professor Snape!" Terry said to him, cheerfully. "How are you?"   
  
"I don't have time right now, you disgrace of a Ravenclaw. I have to teach you and your idiot friends Potions," Snape sneered at Terry, slipping in a pool of his own grease.  

"I've fallen and I can't get up!" he bemoaned into the back of his greasy hand, trying to cover his shame, but no one can cover that much grease.  
  
Terry took a seat next to Lisa in the classroom. Mandy sat next to some other Ravenclaw in the seat in front of them.   
  


After Professor Snape had collected himself and some of the extra grease (it's a galleon a pint in Hogsmeade), he began the class.

  
"Class, I would give you some sort of introduction speech, but I spent all my energy on the class that really matters, the Gryffindors and the Slytherins. So let's just begin with a small potion," Professor Snape drawled, trying not to make his speech any more interesting than it needed to be. "You'll find the ingredients list on the board, so don't ask me any unnecessary questions."   
  
The class glanced at each other, and with a strong "Now!" from Professor Snape, they were off gathering their ingredients.   
  
While Terry was getting his ingredients, he managed to stumble into Professor Snape's desk, knocking everything over in the process, and setting small things on fire somehow, in that tried and true Terry fashion.   
  
"Terry!" Snape bellowed, as his shoe caught on fire. While Snape was struggling to put it out, Terry noticed a headline in the daily newspaper that was delivered to Hogwarts.   
  
**Something Else Happened At Gringotts**   
  
"'Something from a vault we can't remember turned up missing today. Except we can't remember what it was, and we're pretty sure we're glad it's gone,' a goblin spokesperson told news reporters today. We would report more, but what's the point?"   
  
Underneath this article was a picture of the news reporters and goblins sleeping next to an open vault.   
  
"Hey…" Terry said, trying to put two and two together. "This sounds familiar."   
  
Terry tried to remember exactly where it was that he had heard about Gringotts, or why it was an important place anyway. Once he had deduced it was a bank, he tried to figure out how it was that he recognized the open vault in the picture. "It couldn't be...," he started to think, but just then the paper started on fire, and Terry forgot about everything except the sound beating Professor Snape was going to give him.  


	10. The Midnight Fool

Terry was really excited about his first flying lesson. Being one-legged, walking had always been a struggle of wits for him, and his phantom leg had always won. Usually Terry had just given up moving after that, and had sat in his hole and cried, but now Terry would be able to move like other kids. Flying was going to make him normal! Or at least, that's what Terry hoped. Terry was full of false hope like that.   
  
The Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs gathered on the green for their first flying lesson, but no one was more excited than Terry. He was so excited, that he was actually attempting to move like a normal person, what with all the hopping and jumping he was doing all over his friends.   
  
"Terry," Mandy began. "If you don't calm down, I'm going to hit you."   
  
Terry stopped immediately. Threats of abuse and violence were things that he was used to. Mandy noticed the stricken look on his face, and immediately apologized.   
  
"Terry, I'm so sorry," Mandy said. "Of course I won't really hit you. I just really wanted you to calm down. I thought you might hurt yourself or something, what with all of your one legged jumping."   
  
"That's okay, Mandy," he told her. "I was just surprised that you had said it. I didn't really think you were going to do it, unless you do, and then in that case, I knew it all along," Terry finished with a knowing nod.   
  
"Way to cover all your bases, Terry," a Hufflepuff told him, overhearing his conversation.   
  
"Stop encouraging his nonsense," Lisa hissed at him, while Terry went back to looking at the broomstick that was lying on the ground.   
  
"I can't wait to get on a broom and fly!" he told Lisa excitedly.   
  
"I'm excited for you, Terry," Lisa told him, not really paying attention, because it's hard to break old habits, like ignoring crippled people.   
  
"I wonder if the broomstick chooses the wizard, like a wand," Terry pondered. "I suppose it doesn't matter if it does, because someone will have to choose one for me anyway. Magical objects don't seem to want to choose me as their wizard," Terry frowned a bit.   
  
"I don't think that's how it works here," Mandy told him. "I think we just go, stand next to a broom, and hope that we don't snap our necks."   
  
"Ew, that's so morbid, Mandy," Lisa said. "You shouldn't talk like that around Terry. It might scar him even more than he already is."   
  
"I could die?" Terry asked in awe. "Why didn't anyone tell me?"   
  
"This is the wizarding world," Lisa said. "I'm sure there's a spell to call you back from the dead, or fix your broken spine or something."   
  
"I think you're giving us too much credit," Mandy said, laughing at Lisa. "There isn't a spell to put Terry's leg back together, is there?"   
  
"There isn't!" Terry said in agreement.   
  
"Well," Lisa said. "I suppose you both make a good point. I don't know how I could have missed it…it being Terry's missing leg. It was basically just staring me in the face."   
  
"Or staring you in your kneecap," Terry said earnestly.   
  
Suddenly, they heard one of the doors leading into the castle open and close, and a woman came striding across the field toward the huddled mass of first years.   
  
"Everybody, get a broom!" the woman, Madam Hooch, barked to the class. All the students scrambled to stand next to a broom. Terry was already standing next to his broom, so he didn't have far to go.   
  
"Now, on my whistle, I want you to say 'up!' in a strong, commanding voice. The broom should fly right into your hand. Ready? Go!" Madam Hooch shouted the instructions to the class, and kept one of her eyes on Terry. This was the first crippled boy she'd had in a class since…well…ever, and it made her nervous to see how happy he was to be near a levitating object.   
  
"Up!" Terry shouted, and the broomstick flew right into his hand. No one would ever know just how pleased he was with himself.   
  
There was silence on the green.   
  
"Well…I guess no one saw that coming," Madam Hooch mumbled, surprised that a broom had taken so quickly to a one legged boy.   
  
After a few minutes, everyone who was anyone had their broomsticks in their hands, and were nearly quivering with excitement at finally being able to get off the ground.   
  
"Now, I want you to mount your broom, and on my whistle, kick off from the ground, hover, and then land again. Ready. Go!" Madam Hooch blew her whistle, and watched as the students levitated off of the lawn. She especially kept a watch over Terry.   
  
Terry kicked off from the ground with his good leg, which kind of tipped him over at first, but then he was hovering. The feeling was exhilarating. It was like nothing he had ever experienced before! His grandparents had basically been ground oriented people, so Terry didn't have much experience in the Earth's atmospheres. Suddenly, a rush of adrenaline over took him, and he flew up into the air, completely ignoring Madam Hooch's instructions. This was more like the Terry everyone knew.   
  
"Mr. Boot!" Madam Hooch yelled at him, as he circled back around toward the class at a frighteningly fast speed. "Who do you think you are? Harry Potter? You can't get away with that! Now I bet you think you're going to be put on the Ravenclaw quidditch team too, eh?" she smirked in his general direction.   
  
"Madam Hooch!" called Professor Flitwick, scrambling onto the field suddenly. "That was amazing! I want that boy on the Ravenclaw quidditch team!" he squeaked frantically, as if Terry were suddenly going to disappear and take his chances of a good Quidditch season with him.   
  
"Professor, I don't think you can see from that angle, but," Madam Hooch lowered her voice to a hiss, "he's crippled."   
  
"Yes! What an amazing scare tactic! We'll make him a Chaser! Imagine it. Ravenclaw vs. Gryffindor. Gryffindor has the quaffle, and suddenly, zoom!" Professor Flitwick waved his hands in the air excitedly, almost knocking himself over onto the lawn. "A crippled boy comes out of nowhere, shaking his phantom leg and stump in the other player's face! Who wouldn't want to be pulled from the game after that?" Professor Flitwick explained his game strategy with great gusto.   
  
"I can also make people vomit!" Terry exclaimed, excited, as he watched the conversation unfold before his shining, naïve eyes. He wasn't exactly why Professor Flitwick wanted him on the team so much, in fact, no one could really figure that out, but what he did know was that someone finally wanted him involved in something other than a beating.   
  
"Excellent!" Professor Flitwick shouted. "Even better! Your vomiting on the other players will surely result in a victory for Ravenclaw!"   
  
"How is he the head of Ravenclaw house?" Lisa whispered to Mandy, who just shrugged her shoulders.   
  
Madam Hooch just looked back and forth between Professor Flitwick and Terry Boot. What had happened to the good old days, where people had to earn their way into special positions on clubs and teams? Harry Potter was making this new generation of wizards lazy. But who was she to question these new ways? Stealthily, she pulled a flask from under her robe, took a few swigs, and feeling refreshed with new hope for the world, she went back to her class, completely inebriated.   
  
The rest of the day passed in a glorious blur for Terry, who had been elevated to the esteemed position of Chaser on the Ravenclaw Quidditch team.   
  
"I can't believe it!" Mandy exclaimed for the hundredth time as they were sitting in the common room later that night. "A chaser on the quidditch team? That's amazing! Why, I bet you're the first crippled quidditch player in-"   
  
"A century, according to Professor Flitwick," Terry cut in, beaming.   
  
"I'm really happy for you, Terry," Lisa said absentmindedly, staring at the crackling blaze in the fireplace.   
  
"Hey, you guys," Terry said suddenly.   
  
"What?" asked Lisa, looking up at him.   
  
"I have to use the loo. I'll be right back," Terry got up off the couch he had been sprawled over, if one can sprawl with only one leg, and headed out of the Ravenclaw common room.   
  
"I wonder if he knows where the bathroom is?" Mandy asked Lisa, pulling out the board for wizard's chess.   
  
"We'll give him half an hour, and if he hasn't come back, I suppose we'll have to go find him," Lisa shrugged.   
  
Meanwhile, Terry was wandering, very confused and lost, through Hogwart's castle.   
  
"This always happens when I really have to pee," Terry muttered, as another staircase took him onto another floor, and lead him into yet another room that he didn't know.   
  
"I hope this is a bathroom," Terry said aloud and crossed his fingers.   
  
"Malfoy?" a voice asked in the darkness.   
  
"No. Terry! And I have to pee. Where's the bathroom?" Terry called into the darkness.  
  
"Get out of here! You'll get us all caught," the voice hissed at Terry, while coming closer to him. When the person got into the light coming from the open door, Terry could see it was Harry Potter.   
  
"Hey! Harry! Can I shake your hand?" Terry asked excitedly, extending his own hand.   
  
"Umm…sure, but why?" Harry asked, as he shook Terry's hand limply.   
  
"You're the reason I can be lazy!" Terry told him bluntly.   
  
"Wha-?" But Harry never finished his sentence. They heard little, padding feet coming around the corner.   
  
"Mrs. Norris!" Ron exclaimed, grabbing Harry by the arm. "Come on! We've got to get out of here!"   
  
The four Gryffindor students scrambled back into the trophy room, attempting to hide as Mrs. Norris sidled up to Terry.   
  
"Hello, Kitty!" Terry said happily, reaching down to pet Mrs. Norris. A horrified, cat expression crossed Mrs. Norris' face as Terry stroked her furry back.   
  
What was wrong with this boy, the cat wondered, and what sticky, dirty mess did he fondle before me?   
  
But as Terry's enthusiasm for having a feline friend grew, Mrs. Norris' false façade of stoicism failed, and she started purring. She weaved her way around Terry's one leg, as Terry clutched the doorframe to keep from falling over the cat.   
  
"You're a really great cat," Terry said, pulling himself away from Mrs. Norris. "But I need to get going now. I still have to pee really badly."   
  
Mrs. Norris, seeing the distressed look on Terry's face, and noticing that his hands were clutching a little bit too much at the crotch of his pants, tried to use body language to tell Terry to follow her to a bathroom.   
  
"I'll see you later, Kitty," Terry said, turning in the opposite direction Mrs. Norris was trying to push him in. She rolled her eyes as Terry walked away from her.   
  
Terry sprinted, as only a one legged boy can, down the hall, peeking into classrooms on his hurried way. Where were the bathrooms in this place?   
  
"Why can't I ever find a bathroom?" Terry cried as he lost himself even more in the Hogwart's castle.   
  
Suddenly, from behind a statue, Peeves burst out and screamed in Terry's face.   
  
"Ahhhh! It's my childhood all over again," Terry bemoaned, and fell backwards, arms waving wildly, into a dark room. The door clicked shut behind him, and Peeves turned the key in the lock.   
  
"That'll take care of that crippled kid," Peeves said, wiping his transparent hands together in a 'job well done' manner.   
  
What Peeves had failed to realize was that Terry, after years of abuse and one, terrifying polar bear mauling, had become rather resilient, and painfully obtuse.   
  
He picked himself up off the ground, dusted off his pant leg, and walked through the door on the other side of the classroom, which lead into a secret hallway of sorts, which now that Terry had found it, sighed in discontentment, because it was no longer a secret.   
  
"The only unique thing about me has been stolen…stolen forever!" the hallway moaned sadly.   
  
"The only normal thing about me was stolen…stolen forever! I know how you feel," Terry sympathized.   
  
In that one moment, boy and hallway realized that they had connected in a very wrong, very incorrect way that must never, ever be spoken about to anyone again. For the hallway, it would mean a renovation of the tearing down kind, and for Terry, well, he couldn't really get any stranger. It was really all win for Terry, but he liked the hallway, and how it had made a huge, ridiculous tangent in his story.   
  
Anyway, Terry walked down this hallway, when suddenly, without warning, the door on his left opened with a crash. In the soft glow of candlelight coming from the now visible room, stood the forms of Lisa Turpin and Mandy Brocklehurst. Lisa, armed with her wand and a heavy looking candelabra, stepped into the hall. "Terry?" she asked.   
  
"Lisa?" Terry asked back.   
  
Mandy pocketed her wand, and sighed. "I told you we'd find him, Lisa."   
  
"We're so relieved to find you, Terry! We were worried. Did you ever find a bathroom?" Lisa asked, stepping into the hallway.  
  
"No," Terry sniffed. "I really have to pee…still."   
  
"The door was locked behind us, so we'll have to find another way out," Mandy said, stepping into the dark, not-so-secret hallway.   
  
"I think I see a door up there," Lisa stated as a couple of kids came barreling out of said door and down the hallway in the opposite direction. They began walking toward the door. When they reached it, Lisa cast the well known unlocking spell that we all know and love, and the door swung open before them.   
  
"It smells in here," Mandy said, waving a hand in front of her nose, trying to get rid of some of the stench.   
  
"It must be a boy's bathroom," Lisa deduced.   
  
"No! It's a dog's bathroom!" Terry shouted.   
  
"What?" Mandy and Lisa asked in unison, but right after the word had left their lips, a giant, three headed dog loomed up in front of them. Terry would have reached out a hand to pet it, if Lisa hadn't dragged him back through the door.   
  
Mandy slammed and locked the door behind them, and they could hear the snuffling of the giant dog trying to find them out.   
  
"What was that thing doing there?" Mandy asked, as they ran back to their common room.   
  
"It was guarding something," Lisa said. "Didn't you see the trap door?"   
  
"I bet it's guarding the Masochist's Boulder!" Terry exclaimed.   
  
"What's the Masochist's Boulder, Terry, and why did you capitalize it?" Lisa asked, as they climbed through the portrait opening.   
  
"It's really important. I heard Professor Kettleburn talking about it at Gringott's. Or, it could be the Sorcerer's Stone," Terry tried to figure out, capitalizing yet another vital plot line.   
  
"Either or, I'm sure Dumbledore knows what he's doing. It's not like he needs three kids to help figure out how to save these stones or boulders," Lisa pointed out to her friends.  
  
The three shared a laugh before going to bed. It had been an extremely eventful day. And Mandy and Lisa finally found a bathroom for Terry to pee in.  


	11. All Hallows Eve

At breakfast the next day, Terry was munching on some crisp, dry toast when a parcel arrived with "Terrie Botte" written on it. Terry wasn't used to getting packages, so he just assumed that there was someone named Terri Botte somewhere in Ravenclaw. 

Instead of owls, there were four giant vultures carrying the mystery parcel, and it may have been this fact that tipped off the rest of the table. Whatever it was, there was definitely no doubt in anyone's mind that it was for Terry, and not this Terri Botte he had just made up. 

"I really think it's for you," Mandy told Terry earnestly, seeing the question in his eyes, as the four scavengers dropped their baggage into a bowl of porridge, which was sitting on the long table right in front of Terry. 

"Does it say 'Jerry Toot' on it?" Terry asked, as that was who he was usually mistaken for. It was safe to say that Jerry Toot in Devonshire was not getting his post regularly. 

"No…," Mandy trailed off. "But it's a really weird spelling of your name, I'm almost positive," she told him, examining the package. 

"Read the note to find out," Lisa suggested, taking a bite of bacon. 

So Terry did. 

"Terry-

Don't open this at the table. We don't want to draw too much attention to the fact that you're missing a leg. I don't think anyone's noticed yet, and we don't want them to. The whole cripple bit is our secret weapon for the match against Hufflepuff. Inside this package is a crutch. Don't tell everyone about it either, as I don't want everyone asking me for one. I hope it helps you succeed at Quidditch. That's our goal! Besides, a crutch will be better for you than a broomstick, I'm sure, as in my past years at Hogwarts, the amount of crippled kids I've dealt with adds up to, well, one. You. But don't worry. I know what I'm doing. I think.

Sincerely,

Professor Flitwick" 

"It _was_ for me!" Terry said, stuffing the note into his pocket, and clutching at his secret crutch. This was more than he had ever dreamed of, unless he counted that dream where he had two legs. 

"What's in the package?" Lisa asked, pushing her glasses further up on her nose. 

"I'll tell you later," Terry whispered in an obvious I-have-a-secret way, which drew the attention of half of the Ravenclaw table. 

"Right, well, I think we should take whatever your secret package is back up to the common room, and then head to class." Lisa swung her legs over the bench and waited for Mandy and Terry to stuff more food in their mouths before following her out of the wide doors of the Great Hall. 

That afternoon, Terry had his first Quidditch lesson. He was so excited, that he headed out to the playing field fifteen minutes early. He sat on the bleachers, excitedly looking toward the doors, but instead of another student coming out to greet him, a huge, white owl flew out of one of the top windows and down to meet Terry. 

Terry greeted the owl warmly, thinking that with everything he had seen in the wizarding world this far, it wasn't going too far to assume that this owl was indeed the Ravenclaw Quidditch captain. 

Terry opened up his letter, and after having read it, set it in his lap to look at more thoroughly. 

"Terry-

I don't have time to teach you Quidditch, because I'm busy being a mystery character. Why don't you watch the first match between Gryffindor and Slytherin to get the hang of things? Katie Bell is a chaser. She'll help you out, probably, if you have any questions. I also hear she puts out, if you go for that kind of stuff.

Sincerely,

The Ravenclaw Quidditch Captain Who J.K. Rowling Really Doesn't Care About

PS: This note will self destruct in fifteen seconds." 

Terry watched in awe as the note exploded with a pop out of his hands.  It flew a good fifty feet over the Quidditch pitch, taking out the snowy owl as it attempted to flee the scene, and fell to the ground in burning pile of flesh and paper.  Terry kicked the flaming bird with his shoe and then shrugged as it gave one last sizzle and pop.

"Everything I touch dies," he said, sorrowfully.  

Kind of disappointed in the whole affair, Terry sat on the bleachers, and then he sat some more. He didn't really know what to do, because he had planned on being taught Quidditch for most of the afternoon. 

After awhile, Terry wandered around the Quidditch field for a bit, trying to get a feel of what it would be like to actually play in a game. He could almost imagine the a game of Quidditch going on high above him, even though he had never seen one before in his life. He wondered what it would be like to fly on his crutch with the crowd cheering below him, except when he tried to picture it in his mind, he pictured the crowd cheering for the other team. 

"Oh well," Terry thought to himself. "At least they're cheering and not throwing things at my crutch." 

A cool breeze blew through the grounds. Terry pulled his jacket tighter, and started heading back toward the castle. He thought about what he would do as a chaser in the Quidditch game, and made up his mind to pay _really_ close attention at the first Quidditch match. Otherwise, it was doomsday for Terry. 

Terry re-read the letter on the way back to the Ravenclaw common room, and thought over things he could do to help him remember his job in the Quidditch game while it was going on. He figured that things would be too hectic for any _real_ learning to kick in, so he needed good rhymes to help him figure things out. But who was he kidding? There was no way he would be able to remember Quidditch rules, let alone put them into funny poems. He may be in Ravenclaw, but he was still crippled. 

Terry entered the common room, and went up to his dormitory to prepare for his Charms class. On his way back downstairs, he tripped, fell, and dropped his bag of school supplies all over the floor. While he was gathering his books, he talked to Lisa and Mandy about Quidditch, and tried to figure out what it was exactly and if they knew how to play it. The mystery Ravenclaw captain was supposed to have explained all of this to Terry, but Terry was glad that he was able to talk to Lisa and Mandy about it. They loved to talk so much, that sometimes Terry just let them go on without really absorbing a word they said…like right then. 

"Wait a minute!" Terry told them, interrupting Lisa in the middle of a sentence. "I forgot to show you my surprise!" 

"Oh yeah!" Lisa exclaimed, a bit bitterly because of how rudely Terry had interrupted her ramblings. "Way to go, Terry. Thanks a lot." 

"Sorry," Terry said, scrambling back up the stairs. "I'll bring it down for you. It's the neatest thing you'll ever see!" 

"I wonder if it's a leg?" Lisa murmured to Mandy, as they watched Terry's good leg disappear behind a curve in the winding staircase. Eventually, they heard a _squeaky, thud_, and Terry's shining, happy face appeared around the curve. 

"A crutch!" he exclaimed proudly, as his sneaker and crutch made one last _squeaky, thud_, on the stone staircase. 

"Wow," Lisa said, giving a soft whistle. "It's really…shiny…" 

"And new," Mandy added, barely managing to show any enthusiasm. 

Luckily, as per usual, Terry didn't notice. 

"My crutch will really help me out!" he said. "Not only will it help with walking sometimes, but it'll be even better than a broomstick. I bet it's faster!" 

"Don't get too excited about it, Terry," Lisa interjected. "I mean, if we can go by the laws of physics here…" 

A nearby fifth year Ravenclaw snorted. "This is the wizarding world. Your basic principles don't apply here." 

"He's right," Mandy nodded. "I remember last summer, my brother stole this time turner, and when he came back, he told us he was in a place with only two dimensions." 

"That's a lie," Terry said. "If the laws of physics teach us anything-" 

"Look!" said the fifth year boy, interrupting Terry in the one moment where he might have captured the lime light. "The laws of physics don't apply here. I mean, just look at what Dumbledore's done in his lifetime, and you'll see what I mean." 

"Are you telling me," Lisa began, "that there is a biography on Albus Dumbledore?" 

"Yes," he said. "But don't bother searching the library for it. Hermione Granger has checked out every book in there, and transfigured them to fit into her pocket." 

 "You're kidding!" Lisa exclaimed. "What'll I read?" 

"Porn," the boy replied, and no one knew if he was joking or not.

"Mug her for books," Mandy suggested. "I'll help." 

"I'll hit her with my crutch!" Terry offered, trying desperately to get back into the conversation. 

"We'd better not cause trouble," Lisa said sadly. "Anyway, Terry, what were we talking about before?" 

"Quidditch, and how it applies to my crutch," Terry reminded her. 

Naturally, Lisa tried to give him the gist of what Quidditch was all about, but Terry got lost somewhere around, "It's a game played on brooms, or in your case, a crutch." Terry had told Mandy and Lisa all about receiving the crutch from Professor Flitwick, and they had, at first, been surprised, but then they both realized what a great opportunity this was for Terry. If Quidditch didn't work out for him, he still had that marvelous crutch. 

They didn't get to talk long, because soon it was time for Charms.

As the class filed into the Charms classroom, Professor Flitwick danced on the tops of his toes. He was looking forward to teaching the class a brand new spell. It would be the hardest spell they had learned all year, which really wasn't saying much. 

"Wingardium Leviosa," Professor Flitwick began once everyone had taken their seats. "It's a very useful spell that you should find to your advantage from time to time. Especially when you want to decorate a particularly tall Christmas tree, or when you need to shellack those hard to reach places." 

He explained what needed doing, which really wasn't a lot, and the class got down to work. "Wingardium Leviosa," Terry shouted boldly, waving his wand enthusiastically. Suddenly, he was transported to Florence, Italy, in the middle of a shopping square. 

"Ahhh!" an Italian woman screamed in Italian, dropping her bags onto the flagstones. 

"Ahhh!" Terry screamed in Cripple, trying to recoil, but only succeeding in frightening the woman more. Before he knew what was happening the large Italian woman was attacking him with a tacky plastic purse.  

"You monster!" she cried in her native tongue.  Terry, confused by the strange words that were coming out of the woman's mouth guessed she was probably trying to tell him that she wanted a hug.  Terry shrugged and wrapped his arms around the sweaty woman, who smelled oddly of meatballs.  

The woman didn't take kindly to this show of affection and whipped out a can of mace from her purse, spraying down Terry and screaming, "Rape!"

Suddenly, there was a pop, a tug, and Terry was back in his Charms class, all of the students staring at him.  Professor Dumbledore burst through the door and drunkenly weaved over to Terry, Lisa behind him.

"I got him as fast as I could," Lisa said breathlessly.  "But it was quite difficult beating him out of that alcohol induced coma."  Dumbledore rolled his eyes in a "shit happens" fashion, and knelt down by Terry who was rubbing his eyes, attempting to wipe out the mace.

"Whoa there, Terry," Dumbledore said, steadying him. "Sorry about that. This magical world is full of things that don't make sense. Ha Ha! Who knew _that would happen though? Geez, this place _is_ full of surprises." _

"So everything is all right?" Professor Flitwick quivered. 

"Absolutely," Dumbledore nodded, heading out the door. "Terry seems fine, so there will be no need for any lawsuits or anything of that nature. Right there, Jerry?" 

"I fell down the changing staircase last night, too," Terry said, an idea forming in his head to get more than Canadian currency. "And just this morning Peeves chased me around with that hunting rifle."

"NO. No, he didn't, Terry, that was a dream," Dumbledore told him, and Terry believed him. After all, it was Dumbledore. The same wizard whose card Terry swallowed instead of the chocolate frog more than a week ago. "Besides, that's just Peeve's way.  He didn't mean any harm.  He hasn't beaten anyone to a bloody pulp in days; I'd say he is quite reformed."  Terry nodded.  Peeves wasn't _too_ bad, only when got a hold of deadly weapons.

"Do I have to practice this spell more?" a dizzy Terry asked Professor Flitwick. 

"No, Terry," he said. "Why don't you go polish up that new crutch of yours?" 

"Great!" Terry exclaimed, quickly scurrying into a door frame. Recovering himself almost immediately, Terry pursued his journey onward, barely aware that he left everyone in the Charms classroom wondering how he managed to keep himself alive without constant supervision. 

Instead of innocently polishing his crutch, like Professor Flitwick had suggested, Terry decided to hobble down to the Quidditch field and attempt to find Katie Bell. 

"She'll help me out," he thought happily. "And maybe even put out, or whatever that means." 

When Terry made his way down to the pitch, it was his good luck to find that the Gryffindor team was actually having a practice session. He waited excitedly in the stands as the team practiced. 

"Oh wow," he breathed, as the level of action was raised. "There are balls everywhere. It's a boy's dream come true!" Before he could say anything more stupid, Fred Weasley swooped down on his broom, and advanced angrily towards Terry. 

"Ravenclaw spy!" he yelled back to his teammates, anger in his eyes. The rest of the team quickly joined him on the ground where he stood beside Terry. Poor Terry was confused beyond belief. He didn't even know how to play the game, let alone spy on it and use the information to his advantage. In fact, many things in Terry's life were like that. 

"But I was just watching-" Terry began, but Fred got up in his face again. 

"You mean, spying!" he shouted, spraying spit onto Terry's freckled expression. Most people liked Fred Weasley because he was such a good natured troublemaker.  Terry was absolutely frightened of him, especially when he somehow multiplied himself and popped up on Terry's other side.  

"The mystery guy told me to come here and ask Katie Bell for help with Quidditch. I don't even know what it is!" Terry protested, waving his arms wildly, eyeing the two Freds warily.

"Oh, yeah," Katie Bell remembered. "He's not a spy, he's just crippled." 

"Oh, sorry, mate," Fred told Terry, clapping him on the back and knocking him onto the ground. "You know…about that missing leg and all." The other Fred punched him playfully in the shoulder and offered him a stick of gum which Katie immediately ignited with a flourish of her wand.  

"Really, George," she scolded.  "Hasn't Jerry had enough pain in his life without your shenanigans? What was that, exploding bubble gum?"

"Nah," Fred said, pushing his double aside.  "That was our special patented 'dumbing down' gum."

"Well then, I suppose there's no harm in him having any then," Katie said, turning to leave. "I mean, it seems to have no effect on Harry here."

"Everything I touch burns," Terry bemoaned.    
  
That evening, everyone headed down to the Great Hall for a Halloween feast. There was plenty of food for everyone to eat at least ten times, and for once, "everyone" included Terry. 

They were halfway through their meal when Professor Quirrell burst into the Great Hall screaming about something. Terry couldn't exactly tell what he was shouting about, because he was too busy concentrating on a piece of chocolate cake in front of him. He only came out of his cake induced trance when Professor Kettleburn dragged him out of the Great Hall away from his friends. 

"Troll trouble in the dungeons," he told Terry. "Business for two-legged people let me tell you." 

Terry nodded. "What should we do?" 

"I'll take you outside for now, because I have to guard the perimeters, and I can't have you running about…or…limping about, I suppose," Professor Kettleburn frowned at Terry in confusion. 

"Okay!" Terry told him enthusiastically. 

They headed out the big front doors of the castle and into the cool night air. Suddenly, they heard a "flip, flop, plop, drag" in the distance. Drawing out their wands, Terry and Professor Kettleburn advanced as best as two crippled people without crutches could advance. And there, standing in the moonlight, were six seals, armed to the teeth with swords and other metal things Terry couldn't identify. 

"Minions of the Polar-Bear-Who-Could-Be-Named-But-Isn't!" Professor Kettleburn shouted, pushing Terry out of the way.

Suddenly, they leaped at Professor Kettleburn, who, taking a few slashes in the good name of wizardom, threw them back a few paces. But he was just too old, crippled, and really bad at magic to fight them single handedly.  

"Cast a spell on 'em," he shouted at Terry, who pointed his wand and said the first thing that came to his mind. 

"Wingardium Leviosa!" he yelled. The seals disappeared. 

"Isn't that spell supposed to levitate them?" Professor Kettleburn asked, picking himself up off the ground. 

"Yes," Terry admitted. "But I'm glad I sent them to Italy instead." 

Professor Kettleburn looked curiously at Terry for a moment, and then let his head clear. That boy was so darned daft that he was sure he lived in a made up world half the time. Yes, that was it. A made up world where things existed like wheelchair ramps and Italy.


	12. The Sport That Should Not Be Named

It had already been November for far too long, when one sunny afternoon found Terry walking down the hallway by himself.  As Terry liked to do from time to time, he was humming some made up melody in his head.  The portraits on the walls were giving him odd glances.  If you've never seen a one legged boy walk, well, then I guess you can't really know what those portraits were feeling.

Terry didn't like to use his crutch for walking.  He realized somewhere around the age of five that he had better get used to being mobile without assistance, and ever since then he had basically been shuffling or hopping wherever he wanted to go.  His thigh muscles were amazing.  

At any rate, Terry was trying to come up with some sort of strategy for the upcoming Quidditch match.  He'd need one if he was to prove himself to be the best crippled chaser of all time.  Of course, it was easy to be the best when you were also the only one ever in the history books.  Terry didn't let that thought bother him though.  It was good to make a first impression, and he was paving the way for all the other crippled quidditch players that were to come, if any were coming at all.  With Lord Pullapart still at large, though, Terry assumed that there would be at least one more child without a limb attending Hogwarts.  Maybe then they'd be able to form a Handicapped Club like Terry had been thinking about.  But of course, deep down, Terry knew that was a wishful type of thinking that would get him no where.

It was thoughts like these that plagued Terry's mind as he wandered aimlessly down the hallway.  He had a break in classes, and was trying to relax his mind after all that studying Lisa had done for him.  It wasn't that Terry didn't like to study on his own, or learn things, but sometimes his brain started to hurt.  That's when Lisa stepped in for him, and helped him to remember things in a way that he found easy.  Like writing test answers on his arm, or slipping a piece of paper with information on it into one of his pockets.  He wasn't a cheater in life, like Harry Potter, he was just a cheater in school, where things don't really count.

It was right after he had thought this and turned a corner that he saw Professor Snape, angry and robes billowing in a non-existent breeze, limping down the hallway.  There was a dark spot of blood on his pants leg, and it was mixing with the grease in a very unappealing way.  Terry felt a pang of sympathy in his stump.  

It was while he was thinking about what would happen if Snape had to have his leg amputated that he heard something off to his right.

"Psst," hissed a voice from around the corner that led to the opposite direction he had come from.  "Terry, is he gone?"

"Yes," Terry told him, walking over by the Boy Who Lived.  For indeed, there was Harry Potter, crouched and shaking slightly, his skin a paler tone than was usual for him.

"Great," Harry told Terry, the Boy Who Limped.  "Boy, I wish I knew what that was all about."

"What happened?" Terry asked, attempting to crouch down by Harry, but just falling into a heap near him.  "Why are you crouching here?"

"Well, I went to go get my book back from Snape, and…wait, why am I telling you this?" Harry finished, looking suspiciously at Terry.  "Why do you want to know anyway?  Who are you?"

"I'm Terry Boot," Terry introduced himself again.  "I'm in Ravenclaw, and I saw that you might be in trouble, or thinking about amputating Snape's leg."

"What?  Nevermind.  Anyway, I guess I'll just tell you the rest of the story.  I barged into the teachers lounge like I owned the place, and there was Snape with this huge gash in his leg, with Filch helping him to wrap a bandage around it.  It was all really suspicious.  Even more suspicious than you asking me what's wrong," Harry Potter finished, pushing his unfashionable glasses further up on his nose.

"I wouldn't worry about it, Harry," Terry told him, struggling to get to his feet.  "Obviously, Snape tried to stop Quirrell from getting the Sorcerer's Stone last night.  It was fairly predictable after that stunt Quirrell pulled in the Great Hall, don't you think?  I mean, of course Snape would try to stop him, what with him protecting you and the stone from Voldemort all at the same time."

"You don't know what you're talking about, Jerry," Harry spat out, turning on his heel and heading back for the Gryffindor Common room like a king in his castle.

Terry shrugged the whole incident off.  Whatever it was, it was reassuring to know that in the end, it all wouldn't rest on Harry's shoulders.

The next day Terry woke up bright and early to tell Lisa and Mandy what he had deduced the night prior.

"You guys," Terry said, approaching them excitedly in the common room.  "Do I ever have news for you!"  Lisa and Mandy exchanged worried glances, wondering if they were about to get another lecture on the joys of waxing his crutch.  

"Does this have something to do with your deformity…errr…I mean…yeah. I guess there's no way to twist that around so it sounds politically correct," Lisa said, frowning slightly.

"No, this has to do with the Philosopher's Stone, silly!" Terry yelled, getting his deformed…errr… spit all over Lisa's specs.

Mandy rolled her eyes and patted Terry on the back.

"What did we tell you about attempting to use British dialect that you can't possibly understand, what with your Canadian ancestry?"

"As it were," Terry added in. 

"Anyways, what about the _Sorcerer's_ Stone?" Lisa asked.

"I ran into Professor Snape last evening, and he was stopping Harry Potter from reneging on his….wait, I mean he was stopping Quirrell from pulling his, er…hamstring," Terry sputtered, falling helplessly into the plot hole of his own story.  It seemed that Terry's obvious brilliance the night before was a fluke of nature.

"Okay Terry, okay," Mandy said, smiling and motioning for Lisa to get his meds, "Open up your mouth because here comes the medicated airplane…"  All Terry heard before heavy doses of Vicadin were forced down his throat were the crazy airplane noises Mandy had been making.

The next thing Terry knew he was waking up in the stands during the Slytherin/Gryffindor Quidditch match.

"My stump is throbbing!" Terry moaned pitifully, wondering if it were some sort of sign and or foreshadowing.

"No Terry, it's just the after effects of the drugs we gave you," Mandy said smartly.

"Why did you do that to me?" Terry asked, utterly confused.  "I just wanted to tell you all about how Quirrell is after the Sorcerer's Stone, and how Snape injured his leg on that giant dog that was guarding those…things," Terry said, finally realizing he was announcing his brilliance to the entire stadium.

"All right, all right," Lisa said.  "Calm down, Terry.  Let's think about this."

"I can't think!  It's those drugs you gave me mixed with that butterbeer I swallowed.  It's making my brain float."

"Are you paying attention, Terry?" Mandy suddenly interrupted.  "Don't you have to do this tomorrow?  You know, Quidditch match against Hufflepuff?"  

"Oops," Terry mumbled, as Harry caught the snitch.  "Oh well.  I think I understand most of what happens.  Did I miss anything important?"

"Not really.  Quirrell was trying to jinx Harry, but Snape stopped him.  I wonder why Dumbledore is still keeping him around.  Do you think it's some sort of "keep your enemies closer" thing?"

"Maybe," Mandy said, a look of concentration upon her face.  "The only thing we're certain about is that Dumbledore has everything under control.  I mean, he is the greatest wizard of our time, isn't he?"

"Maybe I should talk to Professor Kettleburn," Terry said.  "I think he might have some good advice to offer.  Why don't we head down there?"  

The stands were already mostly empty by the time the trio made their way to the grimy, old cabin on the edge of the Forbidden Forest.  When they had reached it, Mandy knocked three times, and finally the door was answered by a red-faced Professor Kettleburn. 

"Come in, come in," he said, moving aside to let them in.  "Good thing you didn't go to that other cabin.  Hagrid lives there, and well, he's never been right in the head.  Bought that stupid three headed dog and put it up in the school, don't ya know."

"No kidding," Lisa said, accepting a cup of tea from Professor Kettleburn.  "Dumbledore let him?"

"Oh yeah," Professor Kettleburn said.  "The thing about Dumbledore is that, yes, he's a great man, but he needs someone to *know* he's great.  Take this new kid, Harry Potter.  Lucky, smarmy lad, if you ask me, but Dumbledore thinks the sun shines out of his arse.  Before Harry there was Hagrid, and Hagrid could do nothing wrong.  Still can't, really.  That's why that dangerous animal is lurking in the school.  Hagrid thought it was a good idea, and lo and behold, it came to pass."

"Hagrid sounds rather dangerous," Mandy commented.  

"He is, he is," Professor Kettleburn concurred.  "He was always ready and quick with his fists to help Dumbledore, but not so much with his smarts, if you get my drift."

"Yes, I do," Terry said, surprising everyone into silence.

When they had finally managed to wrap their minds around the fact that Terry had understood something, Lisa asked Professor Kettleburn another pressing question.

"What is this Masochist's Boulder I'm hearing about?" she asked him, stirring her tea.

"Ah, that old thing," Professor Kettleburn said.  He was patching up an old coat as he talked to the trio.  "Well, it was created by a man called Richard Codpiece.  This Codpiece fellow, he wasn't too pleased with his lot in life, so he created this rock, boulder if you will, that would take his frustration, bottle it up, and then unleash it upon his enemies.  Of course, it all went rather wrong, because the rock, boulder, sorry, turned on him, and he ended up venting his own anger upon himself.  The more time you spent with the boulder, you see, the more you like the pain it brings you.  Turns out the chap rather liked it that way, and hence the name."

"But how did the boulder end up here?" Mandy pressed.

"Well, obviously no one would want to keep it for long, would they?" Professor Kettleburn pointed out.  "It passed from owner to owner, never really finding a steady place to stay, until it came to Gringotts.  Then, Hagrid thought it would help in the battle to fight against You-Know-Who.  Naturally, what Hagrid says is always accepted, so here it is."

"Won't it hurt someone again?" Lisa asked, concerned.  "Someone like Dumbledore?"

"Let's hope not, Lisa," Professor Kettleburn said.  He looked at one of the clocks on his wall, and said, "I hate to do this to you kids, because I like ya so much, but I need to go to a staff meeting right about now."

"Thanks for your time," Terry said, beaming at Professor Kettleburn, and spilling tea over his pants, in true Terry fashion.  

"No problem, Terry.  Always happy to help another cripple," Professor Kettleburn said, rising from his chair.  He showed the kids out of his decrepit hovel that he called a home, and busied himself preparing for another meeting in which he would be ignored.

As the trio walked back up to the castle, Mandy thought aloud, "We should get this boulder out of the castle.  We don't know who it'll hurt, right you guys?"

But Lisa and Terry weren't listening.  They were looking at some mighty suspicious footprints on the ground outside of Professor Kettleburn's cabin.  

"Paw prints, Terry," Lisa breathed, hardly daring to move.  Where each foot had fallen, the ground was frosted over.  It was cool out, but definitely not that cold.

"It's an arctic cold," Terry murmured, and the trio felt significantly less safe than they had at the beginning of the chapter. 


	13. The Pool of Ecnelubrut

"Glad to hear you won your first Quidditch match," Mandy said, moving her chess piece across the board.

"Thanks," Terry said, "If by won you mean lost."  All of Terry's chess pieces committed suicide.  

"Wow," Lisa breathed.  "I've never seen that happen before, and I don't mean you failing, Terry.  Zeus knows I've seen a lot of that, in my day.  I mean, those chess pieces, they they…"

"THEY MOVED! That…that was like…MAGIC!" Terry screeched, motioning to a random screech owl that took that very moment to burst through the window to emphasize his point.  

"Hoo Hoo," scrowled the owl, dropping a shiny blue bag of gifts in front of the decorated tree that sat proudly in the middle of the common room.  

"Terry," Mandy began, rubbing her temples like an alcoholic house wife who'd had to fake one too many head aches in her day.  "You're a wizard.  So, of course you'll see a little magic."

"I just never knew they had a wizard version of Monopoly," Terry said, awe inspired.  "By the way, I passed Go twice, that's five thousand Canadian dollars, and you, Mandy are to go straight to jail.  And Lisa, don't even get me started, you are so in debt, you just landed on my hotel; The Rio Del Terry.  You're in deep water my dear."

"Terry," Lisa said with a sigh, "First off, I'm not even playing.  Secondly, this isn't Monopoly.  And third and most importantly, give me that bottle."  Lisa and Mandy had to fight to get the Butterbeer bottle out of his hand.  On closer inspection, Lisa realized he was drinking straight vodka.

"Butterbeer's for Hufflepuffs and authors who don't know better," Terry slurred, falling forward into Mandy's lap.

"I think you have a problem, Terry," Lisa said, worriedly.

"Nah," Terry said brightly, "This was all just an elaborate excuse to distract the readers from the fact that the authors don't want to mention Quidditch."

"Oh," Lisa and Mandy said in unison.

"Frightfully boring," added Cho, who waltzed onto the scene like Yoko Ono with bi-polar disorder.  "Good game Boot, even if that crutch of yours snapped in half in mid air, eh?"

"I know what air is, Cho," Terry said, smirking.  Cho smiled, stupidly.

"Oh man, you're breaking up the band…group...friendship," Lisa said, scowling as Cho sidled up to Terry.

"I see the Ravenclaw Christmas presents were successfully delivered," Cho said with a smile, not understanding that without Harry Potter she would never have been mentioned in the story to begin with….ever.

"Thanks for bringing that point back up," Mandy said.  "I don't see any more need for your kind in this story.  Why don't you go find Dean…or some other ethnic pity story.  We have enough minorities," she pointed at Terry's lack of leg, "for a whole series on its own."

Cho smiled, laughed, cried, vomited, had a panic attack, and snogged with the Christmas tree all at the same time, and then left.  Before she disappeared into her dormitory, she looked over her shoulder and muttered, "I'll be back… you can count on that. Bwa hahahahah!"  And then she vomited again, and exited the scene.

"So, let's open up your presents!" Terry said, digging into the bag, groping for the correct present.  

"No, Terry!  You can't open up the presents until Christmas morning," Mandy said, shaking her head.  "You do know what Christmas is, right?"

"It's that time of year where I'm forbidden from eating at all, and forbidden from looking happy," Terry said, eyes downcast.

"Not here, Terry!" Lisa exclaimed, trying to make him feel better about his situation, which was impossible.  "You'll get presents, friends, and food!"

"Presents for me?" Terry asked, puzzled.  "But…who would want me to be happy?"

"Us!" Lisa and Mandy shouted at him.  

"Oh…," Terry pondered.  "I'm glad I got you guys something then.  Even though I had to make them."

"I'm sure we'll love them, Terry," Mandy told him, smiling.  "Now, let's go to bed."

The next morning dawned brighter than any day had for Terry since his coming to Hogwarts.  He raced downstairs to join Mandy and Lisa, who were sipping orange juice and waiting for Terry to make his Christmas debut.  

"Good Morning!" they said cheerfully as Terry clambered down the stairs.

"Morning!" he said in return.  "Can we open presents now?"

"Yes," Lisa said, as she followed Terry to the tree.  A lot of Ravenclaws were gathered around, checking bags and boxes for names or some sort of identification.

"Here you go, Lisa, Terry," Mandy said, emerging from the crowd.  "Let's go over there and open them.  It looks a little quieter."

The trio walked to the corner of the common room and sat down.  Terry gave Lisa and Mandy his presents, and watched as they opened them.  He had made them macaroni pictures.  Lisa's was a sun, and Mandy's was the moon.  He told them this enthusiastically.

"Do you like them?" Terry asked, as Mandy and Lisa wondered how Terry could tell one macaroni circle from the next.

Lisa had given Terry a crutch polishing kit, and she had given Mandy a fashionable new sweater and a year's subscription to Cosmopolitan.  

Mandy gave each of her friends five chocolate frogs and a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans.  For Lisa, she also gave her a cloth to wipe her glasses, and for Terry she also gave him some new shoe laces.  She noticed he had been tripping a lot more than usual.  Also, Mandy's mother had knitted for Terry a blue leg warmer, emblazoned with a silver "T".

"Hey!  'T' is for 'Terry'!  Thanks, you guys!" Terry said, clutching his candy, laces, and kit protectively.  "I've never had anything of my own before."

"Just make sure to eat the frogs and beans," Lisa told him…just in case.

"Hey, Terry!" another first year called.  "There's one more package over here for you."  He gave Terry the package and then wandered back to his own group, clearly not interested.

Terry opened the wrapping and there, inside, was an Invisibility Cloak.  

"Wow!" Lisa exclaimed.  "Those things are really rare."

"Not really," a third year said.  "I heard this morning that Harry Potter got one, too."

"Harry's always hogging the spotlight," Mandy complained.

"It's okay, Mandy," Terry said.  "I like my cloak anyway."

That very night found a restless Terry thinking about his Invisibility Cloak.  One would have thought that with all the excitement Terry had had that day, he'd be incredibly tired, or at least a little drowsy.  However, as this story has pointed out, one legged children are hard to predict.  

Terry got out of bed, walked to his chest, and took out his Invisibility Cloak.  He swept it over his shoulders and pranced out of the dormitory, knowing for certain that no one would ever find him under his cloak.

"Hey, Terry," said another first year boy.  "You have to put that *over* your head.  It works better that way."

"Thanks!" Terry said, pulling the cloak over his head.

"No, Terry," the kid said, stepping out from under his Invisibility Cloak.  "You have to put that over your body."

"Thanks!" Terry said, draping it around his body and wondering what a Hufflepuff first year was doing in his dormitory.

"No, Terry…," the kid trailed off, staring at Terry's disembodied head.  "I…," instead of continuing with that, the kid put *his* cloak back on, the right way, ran up to Terry, kicked him in his good leg, and ran off…somewhere.

"Thanks!" Terry said, as he fell down the stairs, the Invisibility Cloak finally swathing his entire body like a turban on Cho's head.  Terry was obviously mixing up nationalities, but he didn't care…or really even notice.

Terry continued onward, occasionally bumping into more people in Invisibility Cloaks.  He'd have to ask Professor Kettleburn about this later, but until then, Terry pretended he was the only special kid with this sort of cloak.  Just like Harry Potter.

Terry didn't know exactly where he was going, or why, but it probably furthered the plot.  Hey look, Harry Potter!

And so Terry found himself at the entrance of a narrow corridor.

"It sure is dark in here," He muttered, stumbling down the hall.  "I wish I knew the spell to make light.  Hrm… I wonder."  Terry took out his wand, hoped for the best and yelled, 'Wingardium Leviosa' and the corridor lit up immediately.  "That one's a keeper."

He walked for a few minutes until he realized something about the corridor had changed.  It took a hard bump on the head for Terry to realize that the corridor ceiling was lower.

"I should probably stop and turn around," Terry said, pondering the situation aloud.  "Then on the other hand, it's been too long since I've had a decent adventure.  Eleven years too long."  He set his jaw and continued walking.  In the end he had to crawl on his hands and knee, but he made it.  

He came to a locked door, about the size of a small dog.  Yes, Terry often thought of things in their relation to small, house broken animals.

"Hrm… this door is locked.  Should I… no, it wouldn't work again, or _would  it?"  Terry shouted "Wingardium Leviosa" once more and the door turned into a rainbow.  _

"Well," Terry said aloud.  "At least I can get through the rainbow."  And so he did.  When he got through the opening, he was in a large, cavern like room.  It was quite a change from the small, slowly compacting corridor that he had just come from.  In the center of this cavern-like room sat a large, slightly glowing, silver pool.  

Terry, excited about the prospect of swimming and possibly fishing, walked toward the pool, only to be stopped when he got within inches of its glowing surface. At the bottom of the pool was inscribed in glowing, green ink, "Warning:  No Diving!".  It showed a picture of a little wizard diving into the pool, and snapping his neck.  Terry took a step back, and then he looked down.  His jaw hit the floor.  Reflected in the pool's glistening surface was a normal looking boy.  Terry would have thought it looked like him, except, this was a *normal* looking boy.  On closer inspection, he realized that it was him, but with two legs.  

Terry tried to smile at this reflection of his deepest wish, but he found he couldn't.  It felt like some small part of him, perhaps the size of a house broken animal, had died.  Terry sat next to the pool, and crossed his leg in front of him, just staring at his reflection which had also sat down, but he had crossed both of his legs.  Reflection Terry was smiling up at Frowning Terry, once in awhile giving a little wave.  Terry must have sat there for hours.

"This isn't right," Terry thought to himself eventually.  "This pool must show my deepest desires."  Terry looked at his reflection from all the angles he could see while sitting down.  It was everything he had ever dreamed of being, but it just…wasn't right.

A little sadly, he finally left.

The next night Terry made the same journey down to the pool, only to discover another object sharing the pool's space.  It was a large mirror, with funny writing at the top.  When Terry looked into the mirror, he just saw himself standing there, with the pool glowing in the background.

"I don't get it," Terry thought to himself.

"Terry, my boy, Terry," Dumbledore said, coming out of the shadows in a creepy, old man, type of way.  "Why do you have to make everything so difficult?  I _just_ took this mirror," Dumbledore pointed toward the pool accidentally, "away from Harry Potter, because he couldn't stop looking at his heart's deepest desire.  And now here I find you, standing next to the Pool of Ecnelubrut," Dumbledore accidentally pointed at the Mirror of Erised, "which shows your deepest fears.  Also, I can't put my finger on it, but something in your eyes tells me you were…ABOUT TO DIVE!  There's no lifeguard on duty, Terry, and there never will be.  So no diving…or swimming…or…just go, Terry.  Just go."

"But, Sir, I have questions," Terry said.

"Who do you think you are?  Harry Potter?  I don't have time for Ravenclaws.  Shove along, Terry, shove along," Dumbledore said, attempting to frighten Terry by waving his arms in his direction.

Terry, smelling the distinct odor of strong booze on Dumbledore's person, quickly scampered off.

"Well, that makes sense," Terry said to himself, as he headed back to the dormitory.  "The Pool must have shown me what I most wanted, and that dirty, rotten mirror showed me what I was most afraid of.  Myself!"  Terry congratulated himself on a job well done, and clambered through the portrait hole.

Meanwhile, sipping a brandy, Dumbledore stood on the edge of the Pool, and watched his reflection as it was told that Harry Potter was changing schools.  "Nooo!" moaned the Dumbledore reflection.  "My meal ticket!"  He shivered.  "I always hated that pool."  

Dumbledore turned and looked in the mirror.  There he was, accepting Harry Potter as his adopted son.  Secretly, Dumbledore had always wished that he could look into the Mirror of Erised and just see himself.  But who was ever truly happy?  And as Dumbledore left the cavern, another thought popped into his head.  What if your deepest desire was to see yourself as you are in the Mirror of Erised?  What would the mirror show you?  Would it be the person, infinite times, reflected in the mirror?  Or would it just show you, yourself, as you are?

These were thoughts that Dumbledore couldn't handle, as the alcohol was slowly eating away at his brain cells…and his liver.  He soiled himself, collapsed, and waited for McGonagall to find him in the morning.  That woman was always cleaning up after him…literally.


	14. Richard Codpiece

Dumbledore hadn't convinced Terry not to go looking for the Pool of Ecnelubrut and the Mirror of Erised again, but he had such a short memory that he had forgotten how to get back down the corridor.  Dumbledore had been counting on that, just how he had been counting on Minerva following him around on those particularly heavy boozing nights with moist towelettes and doggy bags.  

A few days after the pool/mirror incident Terry was walking to the library to meet up with Lisa and Mandy on "boulder" business, when he spotted Neville Longbottom writhing uncontrollably on the floor.

"Ahhhh!  Help me!" he was screaming, looking a lot like a beached whale.  Terry noticed that a familiar blond boy was standing over Neville, chuckling madly, and rubbing his hands together in a definite "I am evil" type of way.

"That's Draco Malfoy," Terry thought, beaming.  "He's my friend… but what is he doing to that fat kid?"  Terry knew how it felt to be picked on, and he suddenly felt bad for Neville.  He watched as Neville dragged himself away from Malfoy, and slowly inched his way down the corridor.

Terry, acting very out of character, did the first noble deed of his life.  He hobbled up to Malfoy, raised his wand and yelled, 'Wingardium Leviosa!'  Malfoy, only realizing Terry was there a few moments prior to the spell being cast, started laughing even louder.  Yet, when the levitating spell hit him he was laughing no more.

Malfoy disappeared in a blink of flashing green light.

"Hope you enjoy your time in Italy, Malfoy," Terry said with a chuckle.  "I hear it's beautiful this time of year."  Never had Terry been so clever in his life, and never would he be again.  It was only fitting that no one had seen or heard what had went down, and no one would ever believe him.

Anyway, this filler is just an excuse to skimp on the Quidditch scenes, which no one really pays attention to anyway, because we all know that no matter what happens, Gryffindor will win the house cup.

Terry did play Quidditch, and it was very…boring and… 

They lost.

After the game, as the Ravenclaw house finished pelting their Quidditch team with rotten vegetables and rabid chocolate frogs, Terry joined Lisa and Mandy in the common room to talk to them about his experiences with the pool and the mirror, and to also catch up on any "boulder" news.

"I don't think anything is really going on," Mandy said, sipping a butterbeer carefully.  She didn't want to end up like Terry…or Dumbledore.  "Wouldn't we have heard something?"

"I don't know," Lisa said.  "I was talking to Hermione Granger the other day, that friend of Harry Potter's, and she talked about all this research and snooping they had been doing to find out about Nicholas Flamel and the Sorcerer's Stone."

"I didn't know you were friends with Hermione," Terry told her.

"Well, not really, but has she got one huge motor mouth on her.  She told me that the Sorting Hat had wanted to put her in Ravenclaw, and boy, am I glad that the Sorting Hat didn't.  Talk about a close one."

"Maybe _we _should do some snooping," Terry told his friends.  But they shook their heads.

"Terry, the last thing we want to do is get involved in business that is strictly for adults who know what they're doing.  I mean, what help could three students offer in the fight against You-Know-Who?"  Lisa told him.

"Right.  I mean, Dumbledore _is_ the greatest wizard of our time.  He didn't get that way by falling for ruses and ignoring obvious signs of danger, now did he?" Mandy added.

"You guys are right," Terry said, getting up from his seat.  "I think I'm going to go see Professor Kettleburn for a little bit."

"Okay," Lisa said, looking into the fireplace.  "Have fun."

Terry headed out of the castle doors, and walked down to the rickety, old cabin on the edge of the Forbidden Forest.  He knocked on the door, and it was soon opened by Professor Kettleburn.

"Terry!" he said, pulling the one legged boy into his house.  "What a surprise!  And have I got news for you."

"Oh?" Terry asked, as a cup of hot chocolate was thrust into his hands.  "What is it?"

"You-Know-Who on the back of Professor Quirrell's head, that's what," Professor Kettleburn practically quivered with excitement.  "Snape's after him now, in the forest, and I saw that Potter boy flying low over the trees, snooping."

"Lisa thought something like this would be happening," Terry told him.

"What?  Potter spying on Snape?"

"No, You-Know-Who possessing one of the professors."

"Well, she is in Ravenclaw.  They're supposed to be the smartest kids in the school."

"It kind of makes me wonder how I got in," Terry mused, looking downward at his stump.  "I mean, crippled kids aren't usually top of their class, are they?"

"I don't really think there's a norm, Terry, although I can chalk my experience with crippled kids up to one…you!  You don't really seem dumb, Terry, just blissfully ignorant.  'Ignorance is Bliss' and all that."

"Now it makes sense," Terry said.  "Whenever I do something really stupid, Lisa says, 'Well, Terry, at least you must be really happy.', and she'll look a little envious.  I always wondered what that meant."

"I'm glad I could help you on your road to discovery, Terry," Professor Kettleburn told him, patting him on his shoulder.  "By the way, sorry about your Quidditch game."

"Quidditch game?" Terry asked.

"Shhh…don't talk about it too much," Professor Kettleburn quickly hushed Terry up.  We don't need any of that in this story.

"Oh…right," Terry murmured.  "Professor Kettleburn, can I ask you a question?"

"You mean besides that one?" he asked with a smile.

"Yes," Terry said, ignoring how heartwarming this scene was trying to become.  "Did you notice any funny footprints outside your cabin after we left the last time?"

"You mean like polar bear prints?" he asked, catching on a little too quickly.

"Exactly!" Terry exclaimed.  "Do you think they have anything to do with the Polar-Bear-Who-Could-Be-Named-But-Isn't?"

"Who?" Professor Kettleburn asked.  "Are you talking about," here he dropped his voice to a whisper, "Lord Pullapart?"

"Who?" Terry asked.

"Well, the bear that took your leg.  Dumbledore always called him 'Lord Pullapart'."

"Dumbledore?" Terry asked.

"Yes, well, in his finer days, before Harry Potter and kind of after Hagrid, there was a time when he was sober.  Sober and intelligent.  Then he went looking for you in the frozen tundra.  It changed him, Terry, it changed him.  Actually, it probably had more to do with Harry Potter, and less to do with you, but isn't that the case in everything."

"More about Lord Pullapart, please," Terry said.

"Good, Terry, good," Professor Kettleburn went on.  "I like how you aren't scared of the name.  It gives Pullapart less power over you, or more, I forget how that works out.  At any rate, yes, Pullapart, he's here."

"What?!" Terry shouted, dropping his mug on the floor.  "But…but why?"

"Well, I suspect that he's after you, Terry.  Once a polar bear has a taste of you, he can't stop thinking about it.  He needs to eat the rest, Terry, or he'll never be satisfied."

"But, he can't eat me!  I'm…Terry!  I'm a boy who needs to live."

"And I plan on helping you live, Terry.  I don't want some polar bear eating one of my favorite students."

"Where would he be hiding?" Terry asked.  "Where does a two ton polar bear live?"

"Anywhere he wants, Terry, anywhere he wants."

Terry thought about this for a moment.  If he were a polar bear, what would he do?  Go to the circus!  No, no, not the circus.  This was a polar bear bent and determined on world domination.  No circus for Lord Pullapart.  Maybe…

"My dormitory!" Terry shouted.  He then realized that it had taken him an hour to work out everything in his head, and that, in fact, Professor Kettleburn was fast asleep.

"Say what?" Professor Kettleburn asked, sitting up in his chair.  

"I bet he's hiding in my dormitory," Terry told Professor Kettleburn excitedly.

"_Or_," Professor Kettleburn began, "he could be that new rug Hagrid bought at a thrift sale and put in the Great Hall.  Yeah, that's just crazy enough to be the truth."

"He _what_?!" Terry asked, stunned.

"I wouldn't be too worried, Terry.  Pullapart's tacked up there pretty good, and he's about to be shellacked by Professor Flitwick," Professor Kettleburn added, taking a sip from his mug.

"That'll just make him angry," Terry commented, thinking how lucky he was that Nonny never tried to shellack him.

"True, but…what can you do?" Professor Kettleburn shrugged.

"Stop them!" Terry told Professor Kettleburn and with feeling.

"No, no, Terry.  Just let the two legged people get on with things.  I'll watch yer back for ye," he finished, falling back asleep.

Terry, a little more uncomfortable after his encounter with Professor Kettleburn, headed back up to the castle.  Just inside the doors to the Great Hall, there He was.  Lord Pullapart was hanging on the wall, smiling down at the students who were doing their homework or just chatting.  When he noticed Terry, he gave one, slow, deliberate wink.

Thanking his lucky stars that Lord Pullapart wasn't powerful enough to resist Dumbledore and Hagrid, Terry went back up to the Ravenclaw common room…to forget promptly about everything he had been told, and everything he had seen.  


	15. Smarmy the Terrible Plot Tangent

"Terry," Lisa said, voice filled with exasperation.  "Exams are in under ten weeks, and the only spell you've mastered is Wingardium Leviosa, and by mastered I mean, you send people to Italy."

"_And_, turn doors into rainbows," Terry said proudly.  

"Like your Canadian blood, that's nothing to be proud of," Mandy pointed out.  "We really ought to start priming you for the Charms exam."

"Charms, smarms, I don't need no stinking charms… lucky or otherwise," Terry said, polishing his crutch.  

"Speaking of 'smarms'," Professor Kettleburn said, interrupting their conversation, for they were loitering in his small, ramshackled cabin, "I have a rather smarmy unicorn for you to meet! He lives in the Forbidden Forest with his partner in crime, Rep, the aptly named replican."

"Replican?" Lisa asked.

"Smarmy?"  pondered Mandy aloud.

"CRIME?!?" Terry bellowed, a question gleaming in his eyes.

"Ah yes," Professor Kettleburn mused.  "Smarms is a fast talking, bag pipe playing, cigar puffing unicorn from around these here parts, in one of those shifty unicorn clans, and Rep, well, let's just say he came from the wrong side of Chicago and it shows.  Funny things, Replicans… the craziest of creatures.  Half leprechaun, half garden gnome…a twisted race, really. They're mostly Italian, and have the sad luck of being cursed with Canadian gold.  I don't like 'em much, but I'm a racist."

"So, this Smarms is coming here?" Lisa asked, clearly perplexed.  "But why?"

"They're old friends of mine, naturally… and Rep is a comin' to collect on his bounty he left back in Hogwarts nearly thirty odd years ago."

"Bounty?" Terry asked, scratching his chin.

"That's right Terry, like leprechauns, replicans have quite the fancy for pots o' gold, except theirs aren't a sittin' at the end of no rainbows," he explained, sipping on some replican fire whiskey.  "Those replicans make a potent moooooonshine," he said, drawing out the o's like it was going out of style.  

"Well, no offense to you Professor," Mandy said, scowling.  "But, I don't think we'll be around to meet these colorful characters.  We have to get ready for our end of the year exams.  I'm not letting that Hermione Granger show me up… crazy Muggle born."

"I like your attitude Mandy.  What a go getter," Professor Kettleburn praised, leading the three out the door.  "Oh, and best stay away from Hagrid's hut while you're at it.  He's raising some crazy secret, illegal dragon.  No good.  Crazy giants.  But I'm a racist.  Anyways, I saw young Malfoy peaking around over there, so trouble must be a brewing.  I wouldn't be Hagrid for the world when this mess comes out.  He won't be able to get out of this one.  But I'm a racist."

And so the three left.

However, they had only gone about three steps, three fateful steps, when they heard a sound from the bushes on the edge of the Forbidden Forest.

"Pssst," they heard a voice hiss.  "Get over here."

The trio headed for the bushes, and saw the strangest pair they had ever seen…this would be an even stranger pair than a pair of legs on Terry Boot.  Standing in the foliage were a kilt clad unicorn smoking a cigar, and a small, surly replican, who at this point in time was trying to get Terry's attention.

"Oi…I hear that giant has gots a dragon in there.  Five galleons says it doesn't last the week.  Do I hear five?  Ten?  Ten galleons says he doesn't last the week.  Twenty for two weeks."

"Stop trying to create betting rings wherever you go," Smarmy said, flicking ash onto Rep's top hat.

The five creatures heard people talking.  

"Get in da bush!" Rep screamed, and the trio dived into the greenery with the two surly fantasy creatures.

"I can't believe it's tonight." they heard Harry Potter saying.  "What was Hagrid thinking?  If only he hadn't tried raising a dragon on his own."

"I know," Hermione agreed.  "I don't want to sneak out any more than you, but Charlie's coming tonight to get it.  We have to show up, and after all, you basically got us into this, Harry."

"What a pretentious brat," Smarms commented, taking a puff.

"Shut yer trap," Rep scrowled.  "That doll has one great kisser."

"Dolls are for girls," Terry said.

"Are ya callin' me a homo?  I'll knife ya!" Rep bargained, pulling out a switch blade and scratching his chin with the tip.  

As Harry Potter's gang passed out of sight, Lisa asked the fateful question, "Who are you, and what exactly do you want?"

"Your money!" Rep threatened.

"Shut up!" Smarms kicked him.  "Sorry, lassy, my partner here has uncontrollable urges.  You know, what with his replican blood and all."

"Oh!  You must be the two that Professor Kettleburn was talking about," Terry said.  "He's waiting for you in the cabin."

"Are we late?" Smarms asked, lighting up a cigarette.

"Only a little a bit," Lisa interjected, scowling at Smarmy and his toxins.

"I can fix that," Smarms said, grimacing in what looked like pain.  His horn gave off a red light that nearly blinded the other three, for Rep had put on a snazzy pair of shades.

Suddenly there were five more creatures sharing their foliage. 

"Are ya callin' me a homo?  I'll knife ya!" Rep bargained, pulling out a switch blade and scratching his chin with the tip.  

"Whoa," one Smarms said to the other.  "That didn't work out like I had planned."

"Way to go, Smarms," said the other Smarms.

"You're making me sick," Terry moaned, as the other one stared in wonder.

"Stop time traveling you punk unicorn!" Rep scrowled.  The other one started advancing with his knife.

Suddenly, there was only one group left.  "Crisis averted," Smarmy said.  "Though we're still late."

"What just happened?" Mandy asked, confused.

"I'm a time traveling unicorn, do you have a problem with that?" Smarmy asked, lighting another cigar.  "I do it all for you ungrateful bastards…I mean, kids.  I live for you kids.  I take them back to different eras…teach them lessons…school lessons that is.  Rep teaches them other kinds of lessons."

Rep glared menacingly at Lisa.  "I'm missin' da Bears game for this," he frowned.

"Well, you best get going, Professor Kettleburn is waiting," Mandy said, looking down on the pair strangely.  She had never really liked unicorns…or replicans for that matter, but she's just a racist.

"Ah, Ray can wait on our arrival for a bit," Smarms said, taking a step out of the foliage.  "We have more pressing issues to sort out first."

"Yeah, like my loot," Rep boomed, rubbing his hands together greedily, lust shining in his eyes.

"Oh, you mean your bounty?" Terry asked excitedly.  "Where *is* it?"  Rep squinted up at Terry, and then pulled him down to his level by the collar of his Wizarding robe.  

"What's it to you?" he demanded.  "You best watch yourself, or you'll be sleeping with the fishes just like my Canadian gold!"

"Oh, it's in the Mirror of Erised?" Terry said, excitedly once again.

"Oi, is this kid on Ritalin or somethin'?" Rep asked, taking off his satin top hat, and rubbing his head.  He was dressed in a swanky, black satin suit, expensive looking leather shoes, and pure white spats.  

"Nah lad," Smarmy said, ignoring Rep's question.  "It's in the Pool of Ecnelubrut.  Crazy thing, really… shows your worst fears in its reflection.  I looked in there once and saw prohibition."

Terry's eyes opened wide as he attempted to process the information that Smarmy had just spat out all over him.

"Wait, how could you put money in a mirror?" Terry asked, confused.

"You idiot," Rep gargled, sucking down a pint of moonshine.  "It's a *pool*, hence the name."

Terry finally understood why chapter twelve had been so poignant.

"But Dumbledore told me that the Pool of Ecnelubrut was a mirror," Terry whispered, almost to himself.

"Was he drunk?" asked Smarms, shooting a wary look at Terry.

"Oh…yeah," Terry said, finally noticing in his memory the way Dumbledore kind of swerved back and forth while he was talking.

"Well, let's get a move on," Rep said, pawing at Lisa.

"I don't like to be touched," she shot back.  

"Once you go rep, you never go back," Rep said, smiling and exposing his golden front teeth.

"That didn't even rhyme," Lisa said, rolling her eyes.

"You guys," Terry began.  "Shouldn't we go get Rep's gold?  This seems like it's taking a little too long."

"Good point, Terry," Rep said.  "Way to always think about gold.  Kind of makes me suspicious though.  Why are you thinking about my gold, Terry?"

"Knock it off," Smarmy said, as they headed up to the castle.  "I've had it with your…talking and living…just shut up."

So everyone headed to the Pool of Ecnelubrut in silence.  As it should have been.

"No diving," Smarms commented, as he and Rep looked into the pool.

"There's no lifeguard either," Terry added, as Lisa and Mandy looked around in wonder at the cavern.  "Where's the mirror?" Terry queried aloud.

"Who cares?" Rep mumbled.  "Hey!" he suddenly exclaimed.  "Smarmy…we're each other!"

And sure enough, reflected in the pool were Smarmy and Rep, but standing where the other one should have been.

"Your deepest fear is to be me?!" Rep burst out.  "What's wrong with me?"

"You don't drink enough," Smarmy said.  "Now shut up, and get your gold."

Rep looked around stealthily, and then took off his hat.  "I'm going in," he said.  He took a running leap and dived into the pool, toward a little flap on the bottom which must have been magically sealed…or some crap like that.  Suddenly, there was a clicking sound, and the sound of water draining down a pipe.

"Smarms!" Rep called, as he swirled around in the whirlpool created by the draining of the Pool of Ecnelubrut.  "Help!  It must have known I dived!"

Smarms didn't move.

"If ya don't help me, I'll knife ya!" he called, as he was being sucked down into the pipe.  There was a huge sucking sound, and then…no more Rep.

"Will he really kill you?" Mandy asked Smarmy.  

"He's threatened to kill me before, but he won't," Smarmy told her.  "He knows I'll just gore him with my horn."

"Ew," Lisa commented.

"Yeah, well, you use what your mother gave you, and all that jazz," Smarmy said.  "Where does this pipe lead?"

"Probably to the lake," Lisa told him.

"Thanks," he said, making a hasty retreat.  Terry gave him the creeps.

On the way back to the common room, they saw Harry Potter and his friends getting lead away by Filch.  

"They must have gotten caught taking the dragon away," Mandy mused aloud.  

"Well," said Lisa.  "This was certainly a worthless chapter…on both accounts."

And no truer statement had been spoken that night.


	16. The Forgotten Replican

That night in the common room saw Terry, Lisa, and Mandy sitting around playing wizard chess.  Terry was on Lisa's side, as they didn't want to run the risk of all of the pieces committing suicide again.  It was unsettling, and it really disturbed the other first years.  Not Terry though.  He was used to useless carnage.

It was right in the middle of a heated game.  Everyone was on edge, wondering if Terry would do something to push Lisa's Queen over the edge.

Suddenly, there was a tapping noise at the frosty window.  The trio looked up, but all they saw was a bright glare from the floating candles.

"These people are freaking wizards," Lisa mumbled.  "Can't they conjure up some electricity?"  

"What could that be?" Mandy wondered aloud, ignoring Lisa's jab at her people.  "We're five stories up, and it's pretty cold out there on the window ledge."

No one was really surprised to see Smarmy perched on the window ledge like some sort of drugged up vulture.  When they opened the huge window two things happened at once.  One thing that happened was Smarms saying, "Don't ask questions."  

The other thing that happened was Terry asking, "How'd you get on the ledge?"

Naturally, both parties ignored each other, as Smarmy didn't seem to think Terry was too important, and Terry didn't seem to think that Smarmy's sitting on a window ledge needed that much thought.

"Can I come in?" Smarms asked, his flanks quivered in the cold night air as another sharp breeze blew by the window.

"Oh yeah, sure," Lisa said, as Smarms stepped into the common room.  Everyone turned to stare, especially the girls, as they were more inclined to want to see a unicorn.  After all, a stereotypical unicorn was soft, friendly, beautiful, and the best thing a little girl could dream for.  Unfortunately for the girls in the Ravenclaw common room, Smarmy wasn't a stereotypical unicorn.

"Hey," Smarms said, lighting a cigarette.  "Five feet, please," he said to one third year girl, pushing her back with his hoof.  "I'm not that type of unicorn, and you're no virgin."

Lisa's mouth hung open and she ran from the room crying.

"Whoa, I meant the other lass," Smarms said, calling after Lisa, but finally he gave up and just laughed about the whole situation.

"I guess I'll be the one to go calm her down," Mandy glared at Terry, then ran out of the room as well, but in a much more composed manner.  

"I can be a good friend," Terry tried to explain to Smarmy.  "But sometimes my stump gets in the way of my common sense."

"Okay, laddy," Smarms said with a slight snarl, his nostrils flaring in Terry's direction.  "Enough of this chit-chat.  You need to come with me.  One of my clan has been whacked."  And before Terry could think twice, Smarms had hauled him up on his strong back, and jumped out of the open window.  Behind him, Terry could hear people exclaiming over the fact that a crippled kid was flying on a unicorn, and that, after all, unicorns couldn't fly.

"Unicorns can't fly!" Terry wailed into the night. 

"I thought I told you," Smarmy said, exhaling and creating a huge frosty cloud in the cold night air.  "I'm a flying unicorn."

Terry had never been so scared in his entire life, partly because he didn't believe Smarmy, and partly because he didn't like flying on giant horses through the night air.  He held onto Smarmy's mane as tightly as he could and closed his eyes.

"Watch the merchandise," Smarms growled, as Terry pulled a little too hard.  They hit the ground with a thump, but Smarms just kept running.

"Where…where are we going?" Terry asked, as they headed off towards the Forbidden Forest.  It was obvious where they were headed, but sometimes Terry just needed things confirmed.

"Into the very heart of the Forbidden Forest, is where we're going.  He's asking for you, and I have to bring you."

"Who?"  Terry asked, anxiety rising up inside of him.

"You don't want to know, laddy," Smarmy said, just to make Terry even more afraid than he already was.  Inside, Smarmy was chuckling at his own evil wit.

Terry gulped and held on tighter to Smarmy.

In only a few minutes flat they were in the heart of the forest, and Smarms slowed down his gallop to a walk, or a trot if you will, but don't ever tell Smarmy you saw him trotting.  It'll be curtains for you.  

"Be very quiet," Smarmy warned, lighting a cigarette as quietly as he could.  The very night air around them seemed to swallow them up, and Terry had to force himself not to cry out in panic.  He hated suspense, especially when he was involved.

Tension was mounting, but not like that, you sick pervert.

Terry was just about to ask if they were 'there yet' and set off a whole 'if you don't be quiet I'll turn this unicorn around and go straight back to the castle' running gag, when they heard raised voices in the distance.

"Malfoy, if you don't stop breathing down my neck I am going to curse you from here to Italy."  It was Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy, the latter being the obvious person to pick out.  Malfoy seemed to shudder at his last words, and Harry smirked proudly.  Little did Harry Potter know that Malfoy had just eaten some bad gelato in Italy once, and he didn't want to relive the experience.

"What are those lads doing in the forest on a night like this?" Smarms asked angrily, blowing cigarette smoke out of his flaring nostrils.  

"Seems like two legged business to me," Terry answered without thinking, as usual.  "And we definitely are not two legged."

"True that," Smarms agreed, taking full account of his four legs, and Terry's one leg and one ugly, deformed appendage.

"Look," they heard Harry murmur.  Harry and Malfoy walked cautiously over to a small clearing, and as Terry craned his neck he noticed they were staring at the body of a dead unicorn.

"Oh, poor, poor Saucy," Smarms bemoaned, shaking his head sadly at the loss of his close comrade.  

Just then Malfoy let out a loud, annoying, girly screech and started running.  Hovering toward the two boys was a large, dark figure, blood dripping from the gaping hole where its head should be onto the ground.  Harry seemed frozen in pain, as he clutched his forehead.

The figure quickly moved on, and with a sudden bolt, Smarms went after it, completely heedless of the danger he was putting himself into, or at least, that's what Terry thought was happening.

"He's the one," Smarms screeched, dodging past trees and bushes with Terry still clinging desperately to his back.  "The one who wished to speak with you."

"Is he the one who whacked your friend?"  Terry asked, trying to keep up with the ever changing lingo.  Terry wasn't too good at keeping up with the times.

"No, no… that was done by a fouler beast…," Smarmy tried to say ominously, but failed, as it's hard to sound ominous when you're out of breath and still running, and when you're a wise cracking unicorn.

"Who?" Terry pressed, wanting to know names so he could immediately forget them.

"I'd tell you but it would ruin the plot.  Shut up and ride," Smarmy told him, attempting to follow the contract he signed before entering this plot.  Giving Terry advice on how to achieve the perfect outcome for this book was number five on the list of things one shouldn't do.  The first four are all about Terry himself, and naturally, not important enough to mention in this paragraph.

After a few moments of riding they caught up with the evil looking, hooded figure.  They were nearly out of the forest, and there was more moonlight than before shifting through the trees.  It gave them a better view, and made Smarmy's coat shine ever more brightly. 

"Stop!" Smarms called, and the figure immediately obeyed.  "I've brought the kid you were asking about."  Smarms unceremoniously bucked Terry from his back, and with a nod of his head ran off into the night like a demented My Little Pony.

"Crap," Terry said, as his only means of transportation galloped off into the darkness.  He would have said shit, but this is a children's story, not that it's mattered so far.

"Kid?" the hooded figure questioned, looking at the lump of Terry on the ground.  "I asked that unicorn about a kid?"

"Yeah!" Terry answered the question that wasn't directed at him.  "I'm Terry Boot, and I'm in Ravenclaw."

The hooded figure's face was still blocked from Terry's view.  Suddenly, the looming figure swiveled around on his boot clad feet, and looked in the opposite direction from Terry.

"What would I want with a Ravenclaw?" he asked himself, scratching his cloaked skull in confusion.  "What could a Ravenclaw help me with?"

There was a long pause, in which Terry heard the sound of an owl hooting in the distance, and some seventh years trying to have a quickie in the shrubbery a few yards away.

"Urm…hello?" Terry said dumbly, trying to get the figure to start explaining why he was in the middle of the woods on a damp, chilly night.  The figure turned around, revealing the pale face of Professor Quirrell.

"Good evening…Te…Terry," he stuttered, grinning insanely, and trying to wipe blood from his lips. 

"Who _are_ you?"  Terry asked, confused.  "And how did you remember my name?"

"Why, I am Professor Quirrell," he said awkwardly.  "And I used a neat method to remember your name.  Terry: Terry Eats Raspberry Rolls Yearly."

"Why don't you just remember the first letter, "T", and use it to remember my name?" Terry pondered, for once being in the know.

"Shut up!" Quirrell shouted.  "Who's the one in charge here?  I have to tell you about Lord Voldemort!"

"Hey!  Who do you think I am? Harry Potter?" Terry asked, sounding annoyed.  "He and I aren't that much alike.  We have different plots and characters.   I really don't think I have time for this."  Quirrell looked taken aback.  When did Ravenclaw's become aggressive?

"Terry, I have to tell you something," Quirrell nervously played with his hands, trying to forget Terry's new forceful personality.

"Well…tell me then," Terry tried to demand in keeping with his new character which wasn't going to last much past this chapter.

"Lord Pullapart…he's controlling me and my master.  He…he wants the Masochist's Boulder…he's using us to get his every desire and whim…," Professor Quirrell trailed off into a lot of incoherent stuttering.

"Well, okay," Terry said, rolling his eyes and looking around the forest for the quickest way out.  "Thanks, I think, but now I have to get out of here.  I need to study and play some monopoly."

"But you're in grave danger!  He's hungry!  He wants the rest of your limbs!" Professor Quirrell tried to warn Terry, but it was just no good trying to tell Terry anything, especially when Monopoly was involved.

"Can I leave using this path?" Terry asked Quirrell, pointing at a parting between two shrubs that looked promising.  

"Oh, uh…yeah, I think," Quirrell answered, putting his hands into his pockets.  "I'll see you in class then tomorrow, Terry."

"Thanks," Terry said, exiting the forest.  What a cryptic meeting with his Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.  "Hey," Terry wondered aloud.  "Have I ever been to a Defense Against the Dark Arts class?"

But luckily, that question wasn't exactly pressing at this moment, nor would it ever be.  


	17. Through the Plot Hole

The exams for the end of the year had started, and Terry, as we all suspected, was not prepared.

"I didn't know they would be _hard," he complained to Lisa, who had been studying longer than Hermione, but no one cared about Lisa._

Mandy, who had been studying longer than _Lisa said, "Terry, we tried to tell you.  We tried to help you study, but you weren't listening….charms smarms…remember?"_

"I don't have time for these memories," Terry told her, cracking open a dusty book of his.  "I need to study!"

Unfortunately, walking and reading didn't work out for Terry, not that anything does though, but he made a spectacular display of himself as he fell down three staircases.

"Hey!" Lisa exclaimed as they finally entered the Great Hall for lunch.  "The polar bear wall hanging is missing."

"And by 'missing' do you mean on a murderous rampage?  Because then I should be worried," Terry told her, wiping stair dirt from his pant leg.

"What do you mean, Terry?" Mandy asked, pulling up a piece of old wooden bench to sit on.

"That wall hanging ate my parents," Terry told them, tears welling up in his eyes.  "That glisten in his fur was the sparkle in their eyes."

"Terry…," Lisa started to threaten, reaching into her bag for the sedatives she kept just for days like this.

"No, guys, really!  Please listen," Terry begged, trying to make them understand how a wall hanging could be responsible for the deaths of the two people he loved most in his life.

"Okay," Lisa agreed warily, putting the meds back into her satchel.

"My parents, they were eaten by the polar bear that took my leg…the polar bear that was on the wall.  But that bear that was on the wall…he wasn't really dead.  He was just waiting…biding his time…and controlling one of the professors and the most evil wizard of our time," Terry exclaimed, waving his arms, and stuffing fried chicken into his mouth.

"Terry!" Lisa advanced on him.

"Professor Squirrel I think.  Yeah, that's him," Terry concluded, leaning away from Lisa's grasp.

As Lisa closed in on Terry with the pills, Mandy thought this over.  "Hold on, Lisa," she said.  "I…I think he's telling us the truth."

"I hate this magical world," Lisa cursed, putting the pills once again back into her satchel.

"Wingardium Leviosa!" Terry shouted at the bottle of pills.  More pills appeared.

"Curses!" he shouted, as Lisa tried to figure out why Wingardium Leviosa worked in all the ways it did.

"Wait, wait," Mandy told the two, as they grappled with the pills on the floor.  "Where's the wall hanging now?"

"Good question," Terry said, pulling himself to his foot.  "Professor Hurl told me that he was scared of it.  That it was trying to get the Masochist's Boulder."

"This is serious," Lisa said, trying to put a choke hold on Terry.

The trio ate their lunch in relative peace, and then finished up with their last classes of the day.  Terry, finally, casting the Wingardium Leviosa spell correctly for his Charms final, giving him a whopping 60% as a result.

"That's more than I expected, Terry.  I always thought of you more as a 50% person, what with your 50% of leg," Professor Flitwick told him as he walked out of the room.  Overall, Terry was feeling pretty good about himself.  It wasn't until later that night, in the common room, that he began to feel nervous.  There was a chill in the air, and even Lisa and Mandy began to notice.

Mandy had been behaving a bit oddly all evening, and suddenly she leapt up from her chair beside the fire.  "I've got it!" she yelled loudly.

"Got what?" Terry asked, wondering why he never got anything.  

"I didn't want to tell you guys before until I had it all figured out, but earlier this afternoon after the exams, I heard a very interesting bit of information."

She now had the attention of both Lisa and Terry, which with Terry was a difficult thing to accomplish.  

"I was down by Hagrid's hut, just taking a walk to cool down from the excitement of the exams, when I saw that know it all Granger and her two boy toys waltz up to the scene.  They were talking with Hagrid outside his hut, and they were talking about that damned dragon…Sorbet or something.  Anyways, they basically haggled a load of information out of that old dolt about that three headed dog we saw before, and the man that gave him the dragon egg.  Those idiots seemed to think it was Professor Snape or something, and that's when it hit me.  Terry _was_ right!"

Terry, who had been staring off into space the whole time observing none of the information perked up.  "I was?"

"Yes, yes you were Terry.  It was Professor Quirrell who gave Hagrid the dragon's egg so he could get information out of him about Fluffy!  Fluffy must be guarding something… and I think we all know what it is."

"A bone?"  Terry asked.  "Dogs like bones."

"The Masochist's Boulder, and that shoddy Sorcerer's Stone!" Lisa said excitedly.  "The pieces all fit together now.  It all makes sense with the research we've been doing."

"Research?" Terry asked.  "When have you been doing research?"

Lisa and Mandy exchanged glances and sighed.

"We'll tell you all about it on the way, Terry," Mandy began.  "But now we have to get down past that dog and stop Quirrell from taking over the world.  He must really want that Masochist's Boulder.  Why is this magical world full of such ignorant people?"

"Good question, Mandy.  If only we could look _that _up in a book.  Anyway, if we don't stop Professor Quirrell, who will?"  Lisa asked, amusement glinting in her eyes.  "Obviously not the faculty… and it's not likely Harry Potter's going to save the day."

They all had a good laugh and quickly exited the dormitories.

When they got to the not-so-secret hallway, they headed immediately for the door where the three headed dog was.  Inside the room, they found a really angry animal and a broken harp.

"Sing, Terry!" Mandy shouted as the dog turned its beady eyes on the trio.  "I've heard you sing before, in the showers," she offered as an explanation to Lisa, "so sing something now!"

With no time to think about how creepy it was that Mandy was listening to him in the shower, Terry opened his mouth, and once he realized that he would die if he didn't sing, out came the most beautiful soprano voice anyone in that room had heard…including the dog.  Terry sang bits and pieces of every song he knew, with a few rap interludes which the dog didn't like too much, and eventually, the great beast went to sleep.

"Into the trap door!" Lisa shouted, and they all raced for the small opening, throwing themselves at it at the same time.  

"Ouch!" Terry bemoaned, as his face came into contact with Mandy's foot. "Now I know how Harry Potter feels.  My head hurts."

They all tumbled down into the dark abyss, where they landed on "Devils Snare!" Lisa said excitedly.  "I know just what to do."

"Good!" Hermione said, from a corner.  "Because we're stuck down here."

"Okay," Lisa said, pulling out her wand.  "Here it goes…"

But before she could say anything, Terry shouted, "Wingardium Leviosa!" and the Devils Snare turned into cotton balls, much to everyone's surprise.

"Way to go!" Mandy congratulated Terry as they wiped cotton balls off themselves.  "I swear, that spell gets more handy each time you use it."

"Way to pay attention in Herbology, Hermione," Ron sneered, shoving Hermione's face into the pile of cotton.

"Why are you guys down here?" Harry asked Terry, while Hermione struggled to breathe.

"Because we want to run head long into danger without thinking twice," Mandy said sarcastically, staring at Harry.

"Well, you see…," Terry started.

"Wait, I don't care," Harry stated in true Harry fashion.  "Let's go!  I'm sure my good looks and endless luck will help us somehow."

As Harry's group faded into the distance, Mandy said, "So we're following them, right?"

"Oh yeah," Lisa said.  "But I think I found a way around the traps."

She tapped her wand on the bricks, just like in Diagon Alley, in some weird wizard pattern, and a wall opened up before them.

"Let's go," she said, leading the way, wand alight.

They saw a beam of light a little further up the corridor, and headed for that.  It was coming out of the wall, and afforded them the perfect peeping hole with which to spy on Harry and his gang.

"What do we do?" Hermione asked, sobbing into her hands. "I wish we could turn around."

Hundreds of keys beat their wings above them.  "Only one will open the door," Lisa pointed out the obvious.

"Get on the broom," Mandy hissed at Hermione through the wall.

"Hey!" Hermione exclaimed.  "I have an idea.  If you get on the broom and catch the key like the snitch, then we can get through the door."

"Any key?" asked Harry stupidly.

"The old fashioned one…silver," Mandy hissed through the crack in the wall.

Hermione repeated this information to her group, at which time Harry successfully climbed on the broom, caught the key, and passed it on to his group who opened the door for him.

The Ravenclaw trio was impressed that no one had died yet, as Harry's confident smirk was enough to make any intelligent person fear for the future and their safety.

"Good thinking, Hermione," he said, as the door clicked shut behind them.  Meanwhile, Terry's group moved on to the next peeping hole.  They looked in wonder through the crack in the wall at a giant chess board.

"Now what do we do?" Harry asked, looking at Hermione again.

"It's obvious, isn't it?" Ron said snidely.  "We just walk through.  Besides, I suck at chess."

Harry Potter's group started walking across the chess board, but suddenly the pawns drew their swords and barred their way.

"Now what?" Hermione asked, looking at the ceiling, hoping for a miracle.

"Monopoly!" Terry shouted from behind the wall, excited to see his favorite game in life size pieces.

All the chess pieces committed suicide.  A falling sword hit Ron on the head.  He was out cold.  

"Press on!  Leave the weak behind!" Harry commanded, dragging Hermione by the wrist through the next door. 

The two groups moved on, now with one less member.  

"You guys wouldn't leave me behind, would you?" Terry asked, looking a bit frightened.  Mandy gave Terry a reassuring squeeze of the shoulder.

"Never Terry, we're all _real_ friends," Lisa said, smiling.  "Now, let's go."

They could barely make out Hermione babbling something about which teachers had enchanted which traps.  Lisa rolled her eyes as Hermione spewed out useless information.

"I talked to Professor Kettleburn a few days ago," Lisa began.  "And you know that man can't keep a secret.  Anyways, he let slip about how he was working on a secret project. He said, and I quote, 'Sprout's crap at Herbology, Flitwick's an incompetent jerk, but I'm just racist, and McGonnagall's too busy cleaning up after Dumbledore, while Quirrell's too emaciated to lift a wand, and Snape has emotional issues.  So, obviously I've had to enchant all the traps single handedly to guard that damned Sorcerer's Stone.'"

"That man is my hero," Mandy breathed, thinking about her crippled professor.

They soon reached a huge opening in the wall, which joined the two corridors, and Terry's group stepped out to join Harry and Hermione in front of a table covered in glass bottles.  

Harry and Hermione regarded the Ravenclaws with as much interest as a Slyherin gives a Hufflepuff; not very much…unless they want something from them.  In this case, the two Gryfindors wanted the Ravenclaw party's brains.

All five of them stepped forward, glaring darkly at one another, and a large wall of fire burned up around them.  

"Another trap," Hermione said, getting dangerously close to the flames.  Lisa was filled with hope that one problem might be taken care of on its own.  

"Burn baby, burn," she mumbled to herself, as the flames licked at Hermione's sweater.

"Actually," Terry said, looking sheepish.  "I just accidentally Wingardium Leviosa'ed those flames."

"Don't be a dolt," Hermione said coldly, moving toward Terry and dashing Lisa's hopes. "You can't Wingardium Leviosa some flames out of nowhere."  

"Whatever, let's just get on with this," Lisa growled, stepping up to the table. She stood side beside with Harry, who was groping a piece of parchment in his sweaty hands.  

"This piece of paper holds the key to all," he garbled.  "It tells us which potion to drink to get through the flames."

"Let me see that," Lisa said, grabbing the paper from Harry.  "Don't be daft; this is just one of Professor Kettleburn's better pieces of poetry.  That man has no rhyme or meter."

"Then what are the bottles for?" Hermione retorted, smirking.  "And the flames?"

"I told you," Terry began.  "I wingar-"

"I don't want to hear this nonsense," Hermione yelled. "This is all part of a well placed and thought out trap."

Lisa shrugged her shoulders, picked up a bottle and downed it.  "It's just Cherry Coke," she declared.  "Good man, that Kettleburn. Can't hold his fluids very well though.  He knew he'd get thirsty down here."

"Are you saying this is some kind of refreshment stand?"  Harry asked, rolling his eyes.  "I highly doubt Professor Snape would-"

"You obviously have no sense of humor," Mandy said, grinning.  Harry and Hermione looked at one another with blank faces.

"What is this _humor_ you speak of?" Hermione asked, scratching her head.  

"Never you mind," Terry said, finally taking action.  "We have to get going!  These flames aren't even real."  He put his hand through the fake flames and smiled.  "Even my accidents aren't very potent."

The three quickly stepped through the fake flames, Lisa grabbing a glistening bottle of liquid for the road, in case she got thirsty, when they realized Harry and Hermione were still standing beside the table.

"All of my research," Hermione was sobbing.  "It was for nothing.  I've had the rug pulled out from under me by a pair of Ravenclaw's and a… a… cripple!"

"A Ravenclaw cripple," Harry added in, looking sour.  "I am sorely disappointed in you Hermione."

"You watch your mouth Harry Potter!  Don't even get me started about you and your ego-" And they both started throwing spells at one another.

"This wont do," Lisa said.  "We're going to need at least one of them to be a human shield in case trouble abounds."

"Take Potter," Mandy said, as Terry nodded in agreement.  "He's always beating us at Quidditch."

Harry, who had overheard most of the conversation turned around, his hands placed defiantly at his hips.  

"I'd like to see you _make_ me come with you," he snarled.  "I'm Harry bloody Potter, the youngest Seeker in a century, The-Boy-Who-Freaking-Lived-"

Terry quickly Wingardium Leviosa'd him over and gagged him as well.  Harry seemed to be calling out for Hermione's help, waving his arms around crazily.

"You're on your own," Hermione said flippantly, running quickly away from the scene.

Terry, Mandy, and Lisa pushed Harry along in front of them, through the mystical illusion that was Terry's flames.  When they headed into the long cavern that awaited them, there were a couple of surprises for everyone.  But what startled Terry the most wasn't a person, and it wasn't even a spell.


	18. The Polar Bear and the Racist

It was the Mirror of Erised.

"The Pool of Ecnelubrut?" Terry questioned aloud, drawing everyone's attention to him. There was a collective sigh throughout the room as everyone groaned inwardly, even the mystery guest. It had always been professor first, really crazy evil person second for the mystery evil guy, who will be revealed in the next paragraph, and he hated to see his students so stupid.

"Professor Quirrell!" Harry exclaimed stupidly. "Where's Snape! We have to stop him from stealing the stone!"

The three Ravenclaws groaned at Harry's ignorance. For once Terry was in on the loop of things, though that Pool of Ecnelubrut was really giving him a hard time.

Suddenly, an icy chill cut through the air like a bad simile. Professor Quirrell shook, but whether it was with fear or with the cold no one knew or really cared. Walking onto the scene, like he owned the place, was Lord Pullapart, the craziest evil polar bear this side of the Arctic Circle. He was freaking huge, a real monster of a specimen. 

"Rwarmargraawr," said he, smiling his many toothed smile. Magical saliva dripped onto the floor, and Professor Quirrell edged backward just a little bit farther toward the Mirror of Erised. The floor was eaten away in an acidic affect wherever his drool migrated. His saliva seemed to have a mind of its own, and began eating away at what little diginity the story had left. 

"What did he say?" asked Harry, scratching his head in confusion, attempting to look devishly sexy, but only ending up looking quite unclean, as he shed small white flecks all over Terry's shoulder. 

"Wait a moment," Lisa said, coming forth, "I speak Polar Mouth! He said, 'So we meet again, Terry.'…at least, that's what I think he said. He has a really strong accent."

"Nevermind, you ignorant Ravenclaw," Pullapart said in perfect English, sneering at Lisa, a mean, Arctic glare in his beady black eyes. "I can speak many languages. They're all the languages of my victims, you know, but it doesn't matter how I got them or where. What does matter is you, Terry. You and that stump of yours."

"What?" Terry asked, confused. How could _he_ matter?

"How could _he_ matter?" Harry asked aloud, sounding a tad indignant, taking the words right out of Terry's head. Terry often felt like Harry took things from him, like his right to live and other superfluous things. 

Lord Pullapart pushed Harry aside with his meaty right claw, and crept up close to Terry, salivia burning Harry's shoelaces off. "Terry, I've been waiting years to get over this digestive problem that your leg caused me," spoke he, in a low, raspy voice that demanded attention. "I mean, what do you _do _when you have diarrhea and you're vomiting? Lay out in the snow and hope for the best is what I say, and I always follow my own advice, Terry. And talk about acid reflux, Terry." Just then more acidic saliva spewed forth from his gigantic set of choppers, and burned off a coarse whisker. "But anyway, now that I've regained some of my strength, I've come to eat the rest of you. I've had a hankering for some blonde haired, blue eyed eleven year old boy since I first tasted human flesh, and now you're ripe for the picking, Terry, ripe for the picking."

Pullapart crept closer, sniffing Terry's leg, and drooling a hole in the floor. 

"Wait!" called an annoying voice that so much resembled Harry Potter's that it was, in fact, Harry Potter's. "Don't you want to eat _me_?" Lord Pullapart turned away from Terry to inspect the Boy Who Had An Annoyingly Long Nickname. "I mean, why eat Jerry over here? He's a nobody! If you're going to eat anyone, it ought to be me. It just isn't fair!"

For a moment everyone thought that Harry was attempting to be courageous, but soon realized that his need to be number one in every aspect of everything stretched farther than they knew and way farther than Dumbledore ever wished to admit. At this point, everyone was so wrapped up in the scene, that no one seemed to notice Quirrell skulking around in the shadows, digging through old boxes and forgotten recycling. 

"I am sick and tired of your fame mongering!" Mandy burst out, pointing a finger at Harry. "You can't always one up Terry! I mean, you can, but I won't let you this time. If Pullapart here is eating anyone, it's Terry. I mean Zeus, you have your own arch nemesis! You don't see Terry trying to weasel in on your Voldemort time!"

Harry attempted to look outraged, but stepped in a puddle of acidic drool and screamed like a nancy girl instead.

"Here, here!" Lord Pullapart bellowed, stomping his massive paws on the ground so hard that the room shook. "I am eating Terry, and that's all there is to it!"

"That doesn't make sense. Won't the rest of Terry give you indigestion, too?" Lisa said aloud, clearly not afraid of the two ton polar bear, and rather confused about his ramblings.

"Shut up!" Lord Pullapart said, again advancing on Terry in a lumbering, "I'm-a-bear" type of way. "But, before I eat you, I'm going to take over the world…okay? So just wait here while I do the conquering with this Masochist's Boulder, and…oh yeah, smite my enemies. Don't move, Terry. It should only take a second. Whenever evil villains procrastinate so close to succeeding at their final goal, it always works out, and I plan on drawing this out as long as possible."

The entire room looked confused, as well as some of the people inside it.

"Your enemies?" Mandy asked, trying to draw Lord Pullapart's attention away from the fact that his theory was terribly, terribly flawed, as any avid Harry Potter reader will tell you about anything relating to Harry Potter and or plots.

"Smiting?" Harry asked excitedly, eager to get in on this taking-over-the-world action.

Pullapart glared at Harry, but was so proud of his schemes that he let himself be easily distracted. Gloating and polar bears go hand in hand. "Yes. You see, Quirrell and Voldemort were supposed to be working for _me_. I have more power than both of those hosers combined, what with this acidic indigestion. I've really mastered the art of projectile vomiting. I practiced it on a small third world country… what was it called? Oh yeah, Canada. But when news leaked out about that trashy Sorcerer's Stone, they went mad, crazy I tell you, and betrayed me. Little did they realize that since the Sorcerer's Stone was something Dumbledore and Flamel had created on one of their 'boozing' nights, it was _worthless_. Utterly, totally, and not to mention, completely worthless. In fact, I heard Dumbledore mumbling about how he got it out of a cracker jack box, an American brand cracker jack box."

There was silence for a moment, as everyone seemed to digest the information, and much like Pullapart and Terry's leg, they had a hard time doing it. 

Quirrell, who was knee deep in a compost heap, suddenly fell forward, screaming out in pain. "Mphwrphbrph," came a disembodied voice from the back of Quirrell's head. With each muffled syllable, Quirrell's head shot crazily in random directions.

Slowly, with trembling hands, Quirrell finally undid the turban from his skull. On the back of his head was none other than Lord Voldemort, eager to begin smiting, and really pissed off that a dirty turban was over his face for the entire book.

"You lying bastard!" Voldemort shrieked, in a much too high voice. "The Sorcerer's Stone does work! It'll bring me back to power! I swear it! Now where is this glorious creation of Dumbledore's?"

"In my underwear," Harry said, from out of nowhere, smiling mysteriously and jiggling his goods. "Where you'll never get it."

An utter look of revulsion quickly crept across Voldemort's face, as Pullapart tossed his cookies repeatedly. "Damn straight I won't," Voldemort said, suddenly looking wary. "Keep your pants on, you liability, you. I'm out of here," he cawed, quickly killing Quirrell in his attempt to escape from a way too eager Harry. He flew out of the cavern, but before he disappeared from sight, turned around and threw a rock at the boy wonder, who promptly collapsed in a heap on the stone floor, his pants halfway down his legs.

"Score!" Mandy shouted. "That Voldemort isn't too bad."

"Could someone put a bag over Harry's lower body?" Lisa asked, averting her eyes, and trying to swallow the vomit that was creeping slowly up into her oral cavity. Terry kicked Quirrell's corpse across Harry's lower half and Lisa gave him the thumbs up.

"Now!" Lord Pullapart said, rubbing two of his enormous paws together. "I see you've smote my enemies for me, as it were."

"And it was a job of work, let me tell you," Terry added, nodding smartly.

"Way to sound pretentious," Lisa said under her breath.

"Shut up!" Lord Pullapart growled in her direction. Terry just ignored her, as he didn't understand the meaning of "pretentious". "All that's left," he continued, gnawing on Quirrell's dead body, "is to conquer the world, and then eat you, Terry, of course."

Terry, thinking he had a plan, but realizing he didn't, now realized that he had a job of work to do and fast.

"Don't even think about getting the Masochist's Boulder from me, Terry," Pullapart said through a mouthful of greasy, dirty professor. "I have it right here, under my paw. The same paw that got your nature photographing parents. Thought they could snap a photo of me, eh! I sure showed them." Sure enough, the Masochist's Boulder appeared out of nowhere under Pullapart's paw. "The Boulder appears to the one who most wishes the pain of others," Pullapart added, grinning like a two bit-gerbil on wheels.

Terry immediately wondered why Pullapart had received the Boulder instead of Nonny. Forgetting about his enraged relative, Terry's fists clenched and unclenched. He wished he could punch Harry Potter.

Lisa nudged Terry, and the three Ravenclaw's watched in wonder as the Masochist's Boulder began to grow right under Lord Pullapart's meaty paw.

"Oh yeah. I had a job of work digesting those hippy parent's of yours, but what a bowel movement," he droned on, as the Masochist's Boulder grew bigger and bigger. "I mean, there wasn't another mammal that would get near me within a hundred mile radius. Those were the days."

"That is really gross," Lisa mumbled, thinking that she wanted to be out of the area when Professor Quirrell made his triumphant comeback, via bowel movement.

"Ah ha!" Lord Pullapart said, finally noticing the growth of the Masochist's Boulder, and ignoring Lisa completely. "It's preparing to conquer the world! I wonder why it's a _masochist's _boulder?" he pondered aloud, chewing on Quirrell's femur. "This guy's stringy. It must be from all the evil."

The boulder began to steadily grow and grow. Soon it was bigger than Lord Pullapart, who had stopped eating to watch the massive rock expand in size.

"It's like some freak show!" he exclaimed in his moment of would be triumph. "Yes! Yes, that's it!" he crowed. "Grow big and strong, and…Blarrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!" he shouted, slipping back into Polar Mouth as the Masochist's Boulder slowly rolled over on top of him, and then began to roll back and forth over his body, crushing him to death. The pain was starting to grow on him, like a loveable fungus. He had the strength to push it off, but he couldn't bear its loss. He needed that boulder to be crushing him, and that boulder needed this magical polar bear's stupidity.

"What the hell did "Blarrrrrrrrrrrrrgh" mean?" Mandy asked, as the trio watched the scene unfold before their eyes, like a really bad drapery on Trading Spaces.

Lisa said, "Translated, that was, 'Oh, woe is me, how could I have come to such an end. My mother had such hopes for me, and now here I am. I'm a washed up polar bear, out of my territory and out of my league. Oh, if only I had eaten that small boy first, then I could have died satisfied, but no. Alas, and woe for me, I ate that evil, stringy man first, and lo, my flatulence is mighty,' at least I think that's what it was," Lisa finished.

Then Lord Pullapart realized he wasn't dying quite yet. "Terry!" he called. "Help me out of here, so I can eat you!"

"Okay!" Terry said, starting to walk toward him.

"Terry!" Lisa and Mandy exclaimed, grabbing him. 

"How do you stay _alive_?!" Mandy shouted at him, shaking him by the shoulders.

"Quick, Terry, cast a spell on him," Lisa told him. "Be a hero, Terry, like you deserve to be!" 

A gleam of something resembling pride mixed with vengeance lit up Terry's big blue eyes, and he pulled his wand quickly from his knitted leg warmer. Pullapart seemed to know that something vile was about to occur, and he closed his eyes as the small, crippled boy hobbled closer to him and the boulder that was slowly crushing the life out of him.

"This is for eating my parents! Wingardium Leviosa!" Terry screamed at the top of his lungs in the direction of Lord Pullapart.

"Oh no," Lisa moaned, upon hearing the words 'Wingardium Leviosa'. "What was I thinking?"

But with a crack and a pop, Lord Pullapart suddenly disappeared.

"Well, that was anticlimactic," Lisa groused. 

"Where'd he go, Terry?" Mandy asked, as the Masochist's Boulder began to shrink back down to pebble size.

"Italy," Terry said proudly, blowing smoke away from the tip of his wand. "But I don't think he'll be mauling any Italians."

"That's a shame," said Mandy. "But I'm just racist."

Somewhere in Italy, in a small zoo, sat Lord Pullapart on a spray painted, fake looking ice-burg.

"Blaaaaaaaaaargh!" he shouted at the children.

"He's saying 'hello', Antonio," a mother said to her son in Italian.

"I'm saying 'PERISH'!" he blasted, but no one could hear him. For alas, Terry's spell also worked the wonder of taking away his ability to communicate with humans. At least temporarily. "Damn you, Terry!" he cursed to himself. "Damn you to straight to Dumbledore."

And that's exactly what happened. Dumbledore came rushing into the room, eyes only for Harry.

"What a hero!" he exclaimed, pocketing the Masochist's Boulder and the Sorcerer's Stone, which had somehow worked it's way, thankfully, out of Harry's pants. But that's another story for another, darker, day. 

Completely ignoring the Ravenclaws, who followed him out of the maze of traps, he started a running commentary of the situation. 

"Took on Voldemort all by yourself, didn't you, Harry?" he whispered lovingly to the unconscious boy. "Way to go, my little hero. Couldn't touch you, could he? That's the love, Harry, the love in your veins." Dumbledore pushed away Quirrell's bubbling corpse, and picked up Harry in his arms.

Mandy had to pause to vomit. Dumbledore pushed past the Ravenclaw's and began walking back through the dismantled traps. The trio followed, grinning at each other.

"And of course, Ron and Hermione helped you, didn't they? Best friends stick together. You didn't leave anyone behind. Hermione with her smarts, and Ron with his…red hair. You Gryffindors make me proud. Way to slay them with your uncommon good looks, my boy. You'll be a lady killer, I promise you that. In my day…," Dumbledore went on with his stories of the days of yore, but the Ravenclaws, recognizing a drunken stupor for what it was, completely ignored him, and, finally free of the maze of traps, headed back for their common room.

Once inside their house's common room the trio collapsed into the fluffy armchairs. It was late, and everyone else had gone up to bed. 

"Wow," Lisa breathed, trying to take in all that had happened in the past few hours. "We just saved the world… you just saved the world, Terry!" Terry went a bright red, smiled a toothy grin, and hugged his two best friends.

"I couldn't have done it without you two!" Terry exclaimed, feeling the platonic love rush over him like racism all over Mandy every time Cho entered the room. The three smiled, for they had a real friendship, and knew it.

The next few days went by all too quickly. Before they knew it, they were standing on the platform at Hogsmeade, waiting for the Hogwart's Express to steam into the station. 

"Sorry you didn't win the house cup," Harry said, coming up to them with a smug look on his good looking face.

"We were cheering for Slytherin," Mandy told him, sidling up to Terry. Lisa joined them on Terry's other side. "And the 'I'm just racist' comment won't even work this time."

"Yeah, well, maybe you'll win next year," Harry said, hoping against hope that something of that nature would never come to pass.

"Maybe I'll beat you in Quidditch next year," Terry said, not realizing that the cards were already stacked against him for his entire Hogwart's career.

"Yeah, maybe," Harry said, and then walked away. 

"Well, it's only a couple of months until we're back again," Lisa told a forlorn Terry. "I'll call you as much as possible. Do you think your grandparents would mind if I came to visit you sometimes?"

"Yes," Terry told her.

"Oh, well…I guess I'll see you at Platform Nine and Three Quarters next."

"Yes," Terry told her. A small tear trickled down his freckled cheek.

"Don't worry, Terry," Mandy tried to reassure him. "The way those non-school related chapters go, you'll be back here before you know it."

At that, Terry cheered up. The Hogwarts Express pulled into the station, and they clambered aboard. They spent the entire trip snacking on junk food, and playing wizard chess. Well, maybe not Terry, but he watched, always ready to point out who had passed Go.

When the train pulled into King's Cross Station, Terry disembarked, grabbed his things, and went to collect his luggage. Sitting on his luggage was his cat, Gouger. 

"Oh! There you are," Terry said happily. "Well, I suppose every book needs a forgotten character. And this time it's not me."

Gouger actually purred in contentment, and followed Terry out of the station to the waiting cab Diddle and Nonny had sent for him. Inside was a note.

"Terry-

Don't even THINK about coming home.

Sincerely,

Your unfortunate grandparents"

"Time to go home," Terry told Gouger. "5 Privet Drive, please," Terry told the cab driver, who sped off wildly into rush hour traffic. It was good to be home…in that unpleasant, not good way.


	19. Read Before Reviewing

Hi there, everyone!

Well, by this time you should know who I am.  I'm Terry!  Terry Boot?  Come ON!  You just read an entire story about me!  Or did you?  Well, I hope you did, because it's the story of my first year at Hogwarts.  It was a really great year, even though I had a few setbacks.  I even made some friends for the first time in my life!  Professor Kettleburn is also really swell.  It's always nice to meet someone else who is crippled, and besides, he bought me Gouger!  The best cat ever!

Anyway, the authors who wrote up my story told me that I needed to have a talk with you before you decided to submit a review.  You see, some people have been jumping to terrible conclusions.  They're saying that the authors who wrote the story don't even like me!  That's not true!  They're my best friends ever, and when we're talking about Hogwarts, we hardly ever mention my missing leg, except when it's necessary.

You see, "J.K. Around" aren't mean people.  They're really, really nice!  I've even met a few of their friends who have disabilities…maybe not like me, because I'm pretty unique, but other disabilities that are just as serious!  

Remember before you review, that they're not making fun of ME.  They're making fun of Hogwarts, the magical community, my grandparents, Hagrid, Harry Potter, and well…everything besides me, really.  

Thanks for listening!

-Terry Horatio Boot

*A NOTE FROM THE AUTHORS*

Please, please, please read past the first chapter before reviewing.  We realize that the first chapter is harsh, but that is because Terry isn't a kid yet, and we can't show the world well through a baby's eyes.  We have to use his grandparents, and that surly guy at the airport with the baby room.

We're not saying don't send us bad reviews.  By all means, tell us how much we suck at writing.  We like it.  We then go and read your story to see how much better it is, and get tips on our writing from it.  But if you could all stop accusing us of hating people who have problems or disabilities, that would be fantastic.  Because we don't.  We can't even really hate the army mother who yelled at us because she's in a wheelchair and so is her son.  We can't even hate the 9th grader who yelled at us, because she didn't read past the intro and the first chapter.

We really don't hate anybody, except maybe someone who accuses us of hating others after reading this.  Yes.  Then we'll hate you.  Or pity you, because obviously you're incredibly stupid, and possibly only in the 5th grade.

Sincerely,

J.K. Around


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